Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aizawa stared at the phone buzzing insistently on his bedside table. Glancing at the screen, he saw that the time was barely after nine o’clock. It was far too early to be awake.

Beside him, Hizashi stirred, mumbling something in his sleep.

Whatever the damn thing was ringing for, he knew it was about to ruin his weekend. The caller ID, however, brooked no argument. However, this was, he decided, the last time he allowed students off campus.

Grudgingly, he picked up the offending device, telling himself it was only to shut the damn thing up. Sliding out of bed, he went out of the room and sat down in his office, where a stack of papers waited for him to grade by Monday.

His weekend was not looking good.

“What,” he greeted the caller, allowing all of his sleep-deprived anger to flatten his voice.

“Aizawa."

He was tempted, for a moment, to deny it. God knows Hizashi had answered his phone for him any number of times, insatiably nosy (lovable) annoyance that he was.

“Yes, that is this number, much as I may regret it. I swear to god, Endeavor, if this involves a student I am hanging up right now.”

“It’s Shouto.”

Of course it was, Aizawa thought. Even given that Endeavor was currently training both his son and two of his students- something that Aizawa had been somewhat reluctant to allow, but gave in at the thought that if anyone could even attempt to control Bakugou, it was probably Endeavor- he knew that the no.1 hero would never be calling him for anyone except his own son.

Aizawa resisted the urge to pound his head into the desk. He was already only seconds away from expelling the problem child at any given moment, but Shouto was becoming dangerously close to overtaking that place.

Perhaps he should just expel all three of them, and leave Endeavor to take care of their training. After all, Shouto and Katsuki’s fight had ended with them both unconscious and Katsuki having be physically restrained on the podium. Since both boys were apparently still alive (and he really hoped this call wasn’t to change that, because the paperwork to deal with it was a bitch) he assumed that Endeavor was doing a better job than the entire UA faculty, and he for one would be only to happy to foister them off on someone else.

The only reason he did not hang up immediately was the note of something that he could only describe as concern from the hero.

“What the hell has he done. No, actually, I don’t care. I signed his permission to leave campus. As long as he isn’t dead or seriously injured, he’s your problem.”

There was a long pause from the other end of the line, and what sounded like shuffling. Unless Aizawa was hearing things, he also caught the sound of a child’s breathing hitching as though holding back tears, a noise he was dangerously familiar with now as Eri’s caretaker.

“I’m assuming he is neither, Endeavor?” he asked, bored voice barely rising to a question.

“No. Physically he seems to be well. But he will not be returning to school on Monday,” came the reply, eventually.

“Alright. I’ll take your word for it if he isn’t sick, but regardless I’ll need some kind of note if he’s going to be off for more than three days. And it’s up to students to catch up on any work they miss, because I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”

“He isn’t ill. There was a quirk attack, and he was hit.”

Aizawa sighed deeply. He let his head fall down on the table, hoping the thick stack of papers he was supposed to spend the day grading was enough to muffle the sound.

“He has had his license for TWO. DAYS. What kind of trouble could he possibly have got himself in to so quickly? I don’t give a damn if he’s your son, if he’s going to be so reckless then he can hand it back in immediately.”

“There was, so I understand, a group of them. The quirk he was hit with left him unable to fight, even with his training.”

Now Endeavor sounded more like his usual self, although Aizawa could still tell that the temperamental man was making a huge effort to regulate his voice.

He said as much to him. “It’s Saturday, the kid just got his hero license, and I, mistakenly, it seems, gave him permission to leave the dorms to spend the weekend at home. He should be spending his weekend celebrating that with his friends’ (he couldn’t help but dig at that, maliciously), ‘but he gave his reason as wanting to train with you. Frankly, the type of training he has gone through during his childhood would normally be grounds for me to sign custody papers immediately. However, he seems willing to give you a chance. Now, tell me. Your son has just been, from your words, caught up in and hit by a villain attack. Yet you sound strangely calm about this. What’s wrong.”

There was another long pause, then a sigh, as though the man was trying to find his words carefully.

“I...apologise. I know I have been...perhaps harsh on Shouto, but I believed it was for the best. He needs to live up to his legacy, and he can only do that by being the best.”

Another pause.

“Just get to the damn point already. What kind of quirk are we talking about? If you need to bring him here so recovery girl can look at him, I can make sure no-one sees a thing, if you’re so worried about it. If not, I don’t see what your problem is.”

“That won’t be necessary. As I said, he isn’t injured, or unwell.”

“Then. What. Is. It,” Aizawa ground out.

Endeavor sighed, and Aizawa could picture him struggling to force the words out. Good grief, what kind of quirk could make even the no.1 hero this reluctant?

Aizawa frowned, feeling a spark of worry.

“Age regression,” Endeavor finally replied. His normally booming voice was almost a whisper, in his terms.

Aizawa sighed in a mixture of annoyance and relief.  Was that it?

It wasn’t a particularly common quirk, but one that was well documented. There were various forms, ranging from mental regression to actual infantilisation. Eri’s quirk could theoretically return someone to true infancy, but Aizawa would sooner die himself than allow her to try.

It was embarrassing, sure, more so with mental regression, but most people simply shut themselves away until it wore off, with a family member of friend helping them through it. There were even shops dedicated to it where people could buy clothing and supplies short-term and return them once it wore off, no questions asked.

He assumed from Endeavor’s words that the user must have been relatively strong, if he thought that it was likely to outlast the weekend. He made a note of it, knowing he was required to alert principal Nedzu, who would then decide whether to let the other teachers know or simply explain that a student of theirs would be absent.

“Well, that sucks for him. But I fail to see your problem. Shouto is your son. I’m assuming you managed to keep him alive for the last 16 years, so however badly you did it, you can manage a week. Hire a babysitter if it’s that much of a problem, or get your agency lackies to look after him. I don’t care. Just make sure he catches up with the work he misses. Other than that, I really don’t see why it matters. Hell, if you’re trying to be a better father, I’d even say that this is a perfect opportunity for you.”

A professional educator probably wasn’t supposed to speak to his charges’ parents in such a way, but hey. It was early, he was tired, and by god did Todoroki Enji need to hear it from someone. With all the shit Shouto had gone through during his short life, it was about damned time his father took responsibility for it, without hiding behind the (quite literal) mantle of the Flame Hero.

The other end of the line was silent for a long time.

“It is only because I am trying to rectify the mistakes of the past that I will not respond to that, Aizawa,” Endeavor growled.

Aizawa grinned his usual Cheshire smile, for once wishing the man could actually see him.

“I’m terrified,” he said flatly. “Now, tell me you at least have the person responsible in custody. I don’t need to deal with more of this happening.”

“...Tsukauchi is here. I’ve told him to keep quiet about it. Luckily, the area was almost deserted. I don’t think Shouto was seen.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think this may have been a targeted attack, then?”

“I don’t think so. This area is quiet anyway. It being early morning, not many people were around. I don’t see how anyone could have known my son would be out of the dorms. In this case, I think he may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will make sure to teach him about being constantly aware in future.”

“He’s well enough aware of it. Look, I’m aware that this might not be a great time for this to happen, but it’s hardly disastrous. If anything, he was in the right place for it. Most people aren’t so lucky as to be hit on the way to their own homes. If he was in the dorms, I and the staff would have to be responsible for him, not to mention dealing with the rest of the class. Have him until it wears off, and I don’t have to tell the kids anything. I’ll just say he got hit by a quirk and needed to recover at home. I can’t promise the problem child won’t draw his own conclusions though.”

“Yes. He is annoyingly perceptive,” Endeavor stated.

“mmm,” was Aizawa’s only reply. “Well, if that’s all, I have a stack of papers to grade. Have a fun week. In the unlikely event you need anything, don’t hesitate not to contact me. Bye.”

He hung up before the man could get another word in and stared down at the pile of papers in front of him.

Hizashi chose that moment to enter the room. Aizawa looked up at his husband wearing pink pyjamas and his long blond hair hanging around his shoulders. He held two mugs of tea, one of which he placed in front of Aizawa.

“So what’s up? That was an early call for the weekend. One of the kids up to something?”

“Yeah. That was Endeavor,” he said.

Hizashi raised an eyebrow. “He called you?”

Aizawa nodded wearily. “Apparently Shouto got hit by a quirk attack on his way over to his house.” He shook his head, reaching for the mug and inhaling the scent.

“Ooh, rough. Didn’t he and Bakugou only get their licenses a few days ago?” Hizashi asked, eyes wide from above his own mug.

Aizawa nodded again. “Two days. Two days and he goes and gets himself in trouble.”

“Is he ok though? He’s not hurt? Do we need to send recovery girl over?”

Aizawa looked over at his husband and wondered, not for the first time, how he managed to fall in love with such a kind, caring hero. Opposites really did attract, it seemed.

He gave him a fond smile, or as near as he could get. “You really do care about the kids, don’t you?”

Hizashi gave him a mock-offended glare. “Yes, I care about the kids. Even the problem ones. They’re the heroes of the future and it’s up to us to nurture them.”

“Even the problem ones?” Aizawa repeated, flatly.

The blond grinned at him. “Especially the problem ones. After all, I deal with you. Nothing comes close to that.”

Aizawa glared at him for that.

Hizashi ignored him. “So. What’d he get hit with? It can’t be too bad or even you would be freaking out.”

“Age regression. From Endeavor’s attitude, I’d say he’s probably around 4 or 5 now.”

Hizashi looked confused. “How would you know?”

Aizawa ran a hand through his hair. “Because he sounded flustered, almost. And because I could hear Shouto breathing, and he sounded like a child. And if that wasn’t enough, you and I have both read Shouto’s file. He got that scar on his face from his mother in an accident when he was four years old, remember? I’m betting the sight is bringing back some pretty bad memories for the no.1 pro hero.”

Hizashi drew a slow breath between his teeth. As teachers, they were allowed access to their student’s medical files if deemed necessary. It hadn’t taken a genius for both Aizawa and Hizashi to notice Shouto’s bruises during training, as well as his tendency to flinch whenever the voice-quirk teacher raised his voice, and after comparing notes they had come to the same conclusion. Recovery Girl had then confirmed their suspicions after too many times of healing him, and at that point Aizawa decided enough was enough. The truth then came from the boy himself, after asking permission to leave campus occasionally to visit his mother.

The only reason Aizawa hadn’t immediately instigated custody proceedings, as well as a lawsuit, was because of the boy’s own testimony that his father was aware of his faults and wished to rectify them. It had taken calls to his mother and sister to state that they would refuse to testify, as well as Fuyumi’s affirmation that Endeavor was indeed trying to redeem himself, and Aizawa had reluctantly backed down.

It didn’t mean that he had, in any way, let the matter go. He had never liked the flame hero, and as far as he was concerned, anything that would topple him from the no.1 perch was a good thing.

Hizashi broke him out of his slightly murderous train of thought. “What with the media backlash on him right now, he’s going to want to keep a lower profile for a while. If this gives him a chance to redeem himself in Shouto’s eyes, even just a little, then isn’t it worth it?”

Aizawa shrugged. “That’s what I’m hoping. I still don’t trust him as far as I could throw him’-

“That’s not saying much, babe, you could throw him across the sports arena and you know it,” Hizashi pointed out.

Aizawa glared at him, more fiercely this time. ‘-that being said, I don’t envy him the next week though.”

Hizashi nodded in agreement. “Well, speaking of, I know another little listener who should probably be awake by now. I’m making pancakes for breakfast, so come through when you’re ready.”

Saying that, he dropped a kiss on Aizawa’s hair and left the room to go and wake Eri. She had been quite slow to open to Hizashi, which wasn’t surprising given his loud and often abrasive attitude, but the man had the patience of a saint, and now, after several months, the two were as thick as thieves. Hizashi spoiled her terribly, and gave her everything she asked for.

 He frequently walked in to the two communicating entirely in silence, as Hizashi had begun to teach her sigh language. He had learnt it himself as a teen, for when his own quirk made the world too loud, and the little girl had jumped at the opportunity to be able to communicate during the times she couldn’t talk, when the world got too much and she retreated into herself still not quite believing she was saved.

Hitoshi, of course, had no such restrictions. Luckily, he knew when not to push his luck, and for the times he didn’t Aizawa had no qualms in trussing him up with his capture weapon and leaving him until the teen changed his mind. He was spending more and more time at the dorms now, a fact that Aizawa regarded with a mixture of relief and exasperation, because the more kids there were in any space, the more trouble there was and the more work he would undoubtedly have.

The smell of pancakes drifted through from the kitchen, along with the sound of Hizashi singing softly, a tiny voice joining in occasionally. Aizawa gave a long glance at the stack of papers, glaring, then decided they could wait.

Enji would find a way to deal with his family for a week. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen and watching the sight of his husband swaying gently with their daughter in his arms as he cooked them all breakfast, Aizawa couldn't envy him less.

Chapter Text

 A few minutes previously

Endeavor stared down at the child sitting on the pavement in front of him. Two-tone eyes, one marred by a red scar covering half his face, stared up at him fearfully.

After a long moment, the little arms reached up to him.

“Dad?”

Todoroki Enji was many things, and he was far from stupid. He looked at the detective standing to the side with a calm expression, used to this situation (and troublesome UA students).

“An age-regression quirk,” he stated.

“Yes,” Tsukauchi answered, taking out his notebook and leafing through it. “We got a call from a civilian to say a group of villains were attacking the area, and a student ‘of high-school age’ had taken them on. Shouto had already been hit when we arrived. He doesn’t seem to recognise me, and he says he doesn’t know how he got here, so we’re working on total infantilization. He was getting distressed with our questions, so we haven’t got anything more than that to go on.”

Enji wasn’t surprised. Shouto was a reticent child (and wasn’t that his fault, he now realised) so it was hardly surprising he would refuse to talk.

Enji sighed. While the sight of their youngest child clearly under the influence of an age-regression quirk would spark worry in most parent’s hearts, most parents were not the no.1 hero, with media hounding their every move.

Especially after recent events. Enji’s hand rose to touch his own scar, feeling the roughened, still-tender skin beneath his fingers. Recovery girl had done her best, but nothing would change the fact that he was now left with a permanent reminder of his fight, his failure.

Just like your sons, a treacherous voice whispered in the very furthest reaches of his mind.

He deliberately ignored that thought, focusing instead on Shouto.

“Shouto. It’s alright, you’re allowed to talk to the police. What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

Shouto looked up at him tearfully, eyes darting over to Tsukauchi, who smiled encouragingly at him.

“I was outside, and a lot of bad guys came. I don’t remember going outside. I don’t know where I am, but I didn’t go outside, I promise.”

His breathing hitched, no matter how he tried to control it. One of his arms moved to rub at the tears he couldn’t stop.

Enji sighed. “It’s alright. You weren’t outside. You aren’t in trouble, I promise. Now thank the detective for looking after you.”

Shouto didn’t seem to believe that, but whirled around and bowed rigidly to Tsukauchi.

“Thank you very much, Mr Policeman. I’m very sorry for the trouble.”

Tsukauchi smiled at him, rubbing the back of his head. “That’s no worry, Shouto. Just be careful from now on, ok? I have to head back to the station now, so you be good for your dad. He’ll take care of you.”

Shouto nodded fiercely. “Thank you very much,” he said.

Tsukauchi turned his attention to Enji. “I haven’t notified UA yet, so if it’s alright, I’ll leave that to you?”

Enji nodded. “I’ll let Aizawa know.”

Tsukauchi sighed in relief. “Thank you. I really don’t want to bother him any more, he sees us enough as it is. Just let him know I’ll sort all the paperwork out, and I’ll keep you both updated as soon as we have any information on the culprits.”

Enji nodded in thanks.

“Shouto, come here. We’re going home.”

The boy flinched, hurrying over to Enji’s side and bowing deeply to Tsukauchi again. The detective smiled at him, then turned to head back to the station.

Enji began walking, making it a few yards down the road before frowning and turning around.

Shouto was struggling to keep up, clutching the now far too big clothes swamping him and trying to run, tears still slipping down his face.

Enji sighed. Striding back, he swept Shouto up, making him squeak in surprise. Settling him in one arm, he reached for his phone with the other, dialling Aizawa.

He outlined the situation to the teacher, his glare becoming more pronounced as he listened to the man’s unphased words.

“Well, if that’s all, don’t hesitate not to contact me. Bye.”

The line went dead. Enji held the phone out in front of him for a moment, glaring at it, then stuffed in back in his pocket.

Shouto didn’t make a sound as Enji carried him back to the house. Luckily, Shouto had been only a few streets away, so it was barely a minute or two before he rounded the corner to the traditional house.

He set Shouto down in the courtyard, turning to shut the gate behind them.

As he did so, a thought struck him. Shouto had been only a few streets from the house. This was one of the safest areas of the city. Enji had chosen it specially for that reason, as well as the traditional design. What had villains been doing so close there? Attempting burglary or robbery would be suicidal, these houses all had highly sophisticated security systems, all including anti-quirk technology.

He filed the thought away for further investigation. Picking Shouto up again, he strode across the courtyard to the door, sliding it open.

“Dad? Is that you? What happened, I heard you talking on the phone and-oh.”

Fuyumi stared at her father in disbelief.

“Age-regression quirk,” Enji answered before she could ask. “Do we have any of his old clothes?” he asked.

Fuyumi shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I’ve got some. I always keep a few spares in case any of the kids have an accident. I’ll go and grab them.”

She hurried down the hall, returning a minute later with her arms full of clothes. She knelt down in front of Shouto, smiling at him.

He frowned at her, confused. “Nee-san?” he said eventually, tentatively.

Fuyumi beamed at him. “That’s right! Here, I’ve got proper clothes for you. Go and change. Are you gonna be ok on your own?”

Shouto nodded determinedly and clutched the clothes to his chest, toddling off to his room.

Fuyumi waited until he was out of earshot before turning to Enji.

“What happened? I mean, you said it was a quirk, but I thought he was training? Was he not able to stop them?”

Enji shook his head. “Apparently there was a group of them. Even he couldn’t fight that many at once, not in a civilian area. The detectives are working on it. He was only a few blocks from here.”

Fuyumi’s brows shot up. “A few blocks from here? Was it an attack? Wait, no-one knows this is our house, do they?”

Enji shook his head. “No. The house is safe. No doubt it was just a group of opportunistic youths, trying to use numbers in a wealthier neighbourhood. If I know Shouto, he probably wasn’t their target. I would guess they went after a civilian and he stepped in to help. From what Tsukauchi said, I doubt Shouto even knew he was hit. Regardless, the culprits were long gone even by the time I got there.”

Fuyumi nodded, looking down the hall worriedly. “Will he be ok? He was only supposed to be here for the weekend. Do they know how long until it wears off? It will wear off, right?”

“Yes. It will probably last around a week. You’ll help me with him.” It was meant to be a question, and Enji frowned at the way his words still came out as a command, even without meaning to.

Fuyumi flinched slightly. “Yes, of course. He’s the same age as my class, so you don’t have to worry about anything. I can take a week off, I’ll just say a family emergency came up. You concentrate on work, you’re the no.1 hero after all!”

She smiled up at him, worry setting into the corners of her eyes as he returned her gaze.

Enji was hit with a flash of guilt again. How much had he forced his children to bear the weight of their family name on their shoulders, to the point that his daughter was willing to drop everything for them, without even considering her own job?

He suddenly realised that he knew nothing about his children’s lives. Did Fuyumi have friends at work? Did she ever go shopping, or out for a coffee, or even so much as a casual chat? Was she happy with her job? Did she worry about the children in her care, their lives and their families, and dreaded the possibility of one day seeing a child with Shouto’s fear reflected in their eyes?

Natsuo barely came home, staying in his college dorms as much as possible and only returning when Fuyumi asked him to. Their last family dinner hadn’t ended well, with the teen storming out with angrily, refusing to accept Enji’s apologies.

He knew Shouto’s public life, obviously. Schooling, training, internships, even his recreation, his youngest son was expected to live up to his father’s legacy and project the image of the Todoroki name, to one day take up Endeavor’s mantle and become the new no.1 hero.

But what of Shouto? What was his favourite class, his favourite colour, TV show, food, clothing? Did he enjoy being surrounded by his classmates, living with 14 other children (15, if the voice quirk boy Aizawa seemed to be training as his own successor was included)?

“Uh, dad? I think Shouto’s done now.” Fuyumi cut off his train of thought, staring up at him worriedly.

He shook his head and looked down at his youngest child.

Shouto was now dressed in a pair of plain blue shorts and a white t-shirt with red edging.

 It was also emblazoned across the front with the red-and-yellow image of All Might, trademark grin and heroic pose proclaiming that ‘he is here!”

Fuyumi went pale. “Oh, goodness, I didn’t notice, I’m sorry. The kids all love him, so I tend to keep clothes with that on because I know they like to wear it. I’m so sorry, I’ll see if I have anything plain, I should have thought-“

“It’s fine,” Enji cut her off.

She stared at him, confused. “Really?”

Enji gave a sharp nod. “It fits him, doesn’t it? So it’s fine. He needed clothes. Thank you, Fuyumi.”

He tried to smile, the feeling strange, but it was enough to make her beam happily at him. “Oh, ok then. Well, it’s a bit late for breakfast, but how about a cup of tea? Shouto, are you thirsty?”

The boy looked up at her from where he had been clutching the edge of his new shirt in his hands.

“mm.” He nodded, turning and padding silently into the lounge. A quick look showed that he was sitting perfectly on one of the cushions at the low table, hands placed neatly in his lap.

Fuyumi’s shoulders fell. “Well, maybe he’s just a little disoriented. I’ll go make us all tea. Are you going on patrol?” she asked.

Enji shook his head. “Shouto asked to train with me this weekend, so I told the agency I wouldn’t be in. They can do without me for a week. Hawks needs to learn to take responsibility, anyway.”

“But don’t they need you? You’re the no.1 hero, you can’t afford to take time out. It’s fine, I can take care of Shouto, you shouldn’t have to take time off for this, I…” her voice trailed off at seeing the expression on his face.

She had seen her father proud, triumphant, stoic, and, most often, furiously angry, but never…sad?

“Fuyumi.”

She looked up at him, wonderingly. “yes?”

“I am aware that I have failed in every way that a parent should. But do you truly think so little of me that you don’t believe I would want to be there for Shouto, for any of you, when you need me?”

Fuyumi felt her face flush and drain of colour rapidly. “Um, well, I just thought you wouldn’t want to be bothered. Shouto can’t go to school like this, and you have so much to deal with as the no.1 hero, so I thought…we would just go back to normal, and keep out of your way.”

Enji felt the anger rise in him, but this time, against his title.

“TO HELL WITH BEING THE NO.1 HERO!” he growled. His flames reared to life around him, and Fuyumi flinched in fright, her arms raising unconsciously to wrap around herself. From the lounge, she heard a faint thump and a sob, and her eyes shot towards the door, knowing that was the sound of Shouto trying desperately to hide under the table.

Enji saw her fear, and immediately reined in his fire, shutting it off until he was bare-faced again.

“Yes, I am the no.1 hero,” he said, much more quietly. “But until this quirk wears off, I am your father first. You heard Shouto. He believes that the perfect turning point can change someone. I believe that this is that point. I don’t hope for a moment that I can undo the past ten years in a single week, but I would like to try. Will you help me?”

Fuyumi felt her eyes fill with tears. “Yes. Yes, of course I’ll help. I just…yes, obviously! That’s amazing! That’s a really good idea. I…I’ll go make the tea now!”

She hurried into the kitchen, a grin nearly splitting her face.

Enji took a deep breath. The sounds coming from the lounge had stopped, leaving the room utterly silent.

He made his way there, stopping as he took in the sight of his son cowering under the table. From this angle, he couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he knew that there would be tears spilling silently down his cheeks as he desperately tried not to cry.

He had gone so, so wrong.

Trying to make his voice as calm and nonthreatening as possible, he said, “Shouto, come out. Fuyumi is making tea.”

Shouto obeyed immediately, crawling out and sitting ramrodly upright, his posture so tense that it must surely have been painful. His cheeks were still wet with tears, and he appeared to be holding his breath in an attempt to stop any more sobs from coming out.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell just then. I’m not angry, I promise.”

If anything, Shouto seemed even more scared at that, staring down at the floor and biting his lip so hard it began to bleed.

Enji decided to forego any other attempts at gentleness, and reached over to take a tissue from the box on the table. Sitting down in front of Shouto, he wiped the boy’s face and mouth.

“Blow.”

The boy did so, looking confused. Enji disposed of the tissue and sat back, taking the chance to look at his son properly.

Shouto was just so small. Like this, he was barely out of infancy, not even as tall as Enji’s knee. Even at 16, Shouto was far from the tallest in his class, and although he had put on a lot of muscle through his training it was obvious that he would likely always have Rei’s slender build.

He had put him through so much, at such a young age, and for what? Shouto had learnt more about being a hero in the past year of being at UA than in all his 16 years of life before. What had made Enji think that isolating him, keeping him even from his own siblings, would make him a better hero? He had been so obsessed with the goal of creating and raising the perfect heir that somewhere along the way he had forgotten that he was a child. His child. His son.

Fuyumi came in carrying a tray to find them sitting like that, in front of one another.

“Um, the tea is ready. Careful, Shouto, it’s hot.”

The boy took the mug placed in front of him uncomplainingly, even as his palms came away red when he set it down on the table in front of him.

“Use your quirk to cool it down if it’s too hot,” Enji said.

Shouto looked up at him, then glanced back down. He grabbed the mug again, his brows flickering together in pain at the heat, and concentrated.

Ice crept over his right hand, slowly engulfing the mug.

He dropped it, only Enji’s quick reflexes saving it from shattering on the table.

“It’s all right, you don’t have to,” he said. He melted the ice, warming the mug until it was a good temperature to hand back to him. Shouto took the mug again and held in in both hands, concentrating carefully.

“Shouto, dad is going to take the next week off work to be at home with us. I’m going to take the week off work, too, and we’ll all have some family time together! Won’t that be fun!”

Shouto looked at his sister, unsure. His eyes darted to Enji, and he sat up hurriedly again. His brows drew together in confusion as he looked between the two of them.

“Will mommy be with us?” he asked in a tiny voice. “And Natsu-nii and Touya-nii?”

Fuyumi’s face fell slightly, but she kept smiling. “Mom isn’t feeling well right now, but we can ask Natsu if he can come over. He’s in class right now, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you!”

IF Shouto noticed she didn’t mention their eldest brother, he didn’t say. He looked back down at the table and reached out for the mug again.

They finished the drinks in silence, none of them knowing what to say. After a while, Enji left the room, saying that he needed to let his agency know the details.

He returned a few minutes later, stopping outside the door as he heard Shouto’s voice.

“Was I bad? Is that why I can’t see mommy? Did I make her sick again by looking like dad?”

“No, of course not,” Fuyumi answered. “I told you, she isn’t feeling very well, so she’s in the hospital. Maybe we can go and see her sometime.”

Shouto seemed to accept this, but a moment later Enji heard him speak again in almost a whisper, as if scared Enji could overhear.

“Dad has a scar on his face now too,” he heard. “Did mommy do it to him? Did she get sad and throw water on him like she did to me, and dad made her go away because of it? Because I made her sad by looking like dad, and now we look the same, so she doesn’t want to see either of us?”

“No, baby, that’s not true. It wasn’t your fault. Mom just couldn’t deal with things very well. We all get sad sometimes, so she’s in the hospital so the doctors can make her better.”

“Oh." There was a moment of silence before Shouto spoke up again.

"Will she come home when she’s better?" he asked. Then, "but I’ll still look like dad. If she got sad because I look like dad, then she won’t get better, so she can’t come home," he said, voice hitching again. "But I want to see her. I won’t be like dad, I promise. No matter how much I look like him, I won’t ever be someone like that! I don’t want to make anyone cry! Heroes aren’t supposed to make people cry!”

He was sobbing again now, and Fuyumi hurriedly shushed him, her own voice wavering.

Enji stood outside the door, his heart feeling like a rock in his chest.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair. Fuyumi had made soba noodles in the hope that it would cheer Shouto up slightly. As usual, the boy ate them uncomplainingly, but a tiny smile played on his face.

He was at least old enough to get ready for bed by himself. Enji heard Fuyumi's footsteps padding down the hall to Shouto's bedroom, to tuck him in, even finding a book to read to him (no doubt for her students).

“Night, Shouto. Sleep well.”

“Good night, Nee-San.”

His voice sounded so unsure, even quiet and heavy with sleep.

“I want to see mommy," he said again in a tiny voice.

“I know,"Fuyumi said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Well, maybe."

She came out of the room, jumping as she saw Enji standing there.

“Oh, dad, I didn’t know you were still up. Do you need something?”

She looked tired, he realised. She had spent the whole day with Shouto, Enji having enclosed himself in his study, realising that he would only upset Shouto further with his presence. 

The two of them had probably spent more time together in these few short hours than in the entirety of Shouto's childhood, he suddenly thought.

“You’re very good with children,” Enji said, trying not to sound grudging.

Fuyumi coloured slightly. “Well, I like kids,” she replied, laughing nervously. “After Touya...left, I was the eldest. I guess it rubbed off.” She looked down, worried.

“You’ll make a good teacher.”

She looked up again, wonderingly. “You think so?”

Enji nodded. “You have a quirk. You could have been a hero if you had only trained. But, after seeing Shouto’s remedial classes, I see now that teachers are heroic in their own way. Some of those children seemed very...troublesome. Shouto was incredibly patient with him. I...wouldn’t have been.”

Fuyumi beamed at him. “Yeah, some of them can be real brats sometimes. My quirk isn’t enough to help at all." 

She met his gaze, smiling sadly. "I know I’m a failure to you, dad. I would never have been strong enough to be a hero, and I’m not clever enough for the Gen Ed or Business Studies classes. But I’m happy where I am now.”

Her face lifted up to him, smile almost turning daring.

Instead of getting angry, Enji tried to return his gaze passively, or as much as he could. “That’s...good. I’m proud of you, Fuyumi.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Really?”

He nodded. “I said it to Shouto, and I should have said it to you too a long time ago. You don’t have to believe me, but I was wrong. You’ve forged your own path, and I realise now that I shouldn’t have tried to force you. Train the next generation of heroes, Fuyumi. Teach them to be better than us.”

Her smile turned radiant. “I will! Thanks, dad!”

She flung her arms around him. Enji stood stock still, unsure. After a moment, his arms rose to pat her back briefly.

She stepped away, wiping her eyes and giggling nervously. “I’m sorry. I just...that means a lot to me. I know the others don’t, but I believe in you. I’ll talk to Natsu and ask him to come home. He’s good enough in class that one week off won’t make all that much difference to him.” She nodded happily, determined.

Enji frowned. His second youngest son adamantly refused to accept Enji's efforts, and he couldn’t blame him. Having him home for a week would likely cause tensions, but Shouto would be happy to see him.

“Alright. If his teachers are against it, have them call me.”

“I will.”

She made as if to turn. Enji paused, then spoke again.

“Fuyumi.”

His daughter turned round again, face questioning.

“Yes?”

Enji looked back at her, expression resolute.

“Call your mother. Explain everything.”

Fuyumi looked back nervously, her eyes darting to the room where Shouto lay asleep.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “She may refuse to see him. I know she won’t want to see me, and I have promised her that I won’t force her. But Shouto wants his mother, and he needs her. Please, for his sake, I want you to try.”

Fuyumi nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Ok. I’ll try. I’ll visit her tomorrow. Maybe if I ask in person, it won’t be as much of a shock. But, if she doesn’t want to see him, what will we do? Shouto will accept whatever we tell him, but there’s only so much I can do for him.”

Enji's mouth twisted. “Then we’ll deal with that when it happens.”

“Ok. I’m going to bed now. Don’t stay up too late. You need to sleep too, you know.”

“Go to bed, Fuyumi. Don’t worry about me.”

She started to open her mouth, then shook her head. “Alright. Good night, dad. Sleep well.”

“Good night.”

She smiled at him, then turned to go down the corridor to her own room.

Enji waited until she was out of sight, then slid open the door to his son's room.

Shouto lay fast asleep, his face more peaceful than Enji ever saw him awake. His hands lay in soft fists on his pillow, still rounded with baby fat.

He was so small, and so defenceless. No amount of training would have made him grow up any faster. What had he hoped to achieve, he wondered? Even if he had succeeded in making Shouto the perfect heir, he would still have been second to All Might, with many years ahead of him before he took over from Endeavor. In the end, it had all been for nothing. Shouto would become a hero on his own, forging his own path forward the same as Fuyumi and Natsuo. 

Staring down at the tiny body, he made a resolution. He knew that there was no way he could make up for the last ten years in one short week, but as Aizawa had said, there was no better chance than now. He had to at least try, for the sake of his family.

Chapter Text

Fuyumi rang her brother the next morning. Natsuo predictably didn’t take the news too well (he wants to be a better father? Well, great way to go about it!) but agreed to come home “only to make sure our baby bro is safe from that monster”.

Fuyumi sighed, but decided it was probably the best she was going to get from him. She truly wished Natsuo could see that their father really was trying to change, but Natsuo had been only seven when Shouto was injured and their mom was sent away, so she supposed he couldn’t be expected to understand.

He arrived home just before lunchtime, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and wearing his university-emblazoned hoodie in the perfect image of a normal college student.

“So, how is he? Tell me dad hasn’t killed him yet with training, right sis?” he said without preamble.

Fuyumi shook her head, sighing gently. “Nice to see you too. No, they’re both fine. Thank you for coming home, Natsuo.”

She glared at him slightly, ramping up the elder-sister stare and holding one arm arm, stopping him from entering. “I want you to promise that you will try and behave nicely. Dad is really trying now, and I won’t let you ruin it for him.”

Natsuo merely stared at her, unimpressed. “Can’t promise that, sis.”

He brushed past her and entered the house, automatically making his way to his room to dump his bag.

As he passed by the sitting room, he saw a tiny face peering out at him from the corner of his eye. He kept walking, refusing to look at his (baby) brother just yet.

“Natsu-nii? Nee-san, is that Natsu-nii?”

Natsuo heard Fuyumi walk over to him. “Yes, just let him put his bag away first, ok? I’ll go make tea for us all. Go sit down and let dad know he’s home, alright?”

“Ok.”

Natsuo shook his head. He went up the stairs to his room and slid the door open (why did they still have such a traditional house? It was such a pain) and threw his bag down on the floor.

He clenched his hands into fists, trembling in anger.

How could this happen? Endeavor was supposed to be protecting Shouto, his perfect heir, the only one of them he actually bothered to recognise. So how could let his precious prodigy get hit with a quirk like that? And such a…stupidly basic one at that?

He didn’t even know why he was so angry. Fuyumi was trying her best, and while Natsuo couldn’t share her faith in their father in any way, he knew that she really did believe in his ‘redemption’.

So what if he couldn’t? He could still hear their mother’s cries, hear the sound of Shouto’s tiny body hitting the floor of the training room over and over again, the volume of Endeavor’s raging voice audible across the house.

Natsuo had been forgotten. First Touya, the eldest, the presumed heir, with only fire. Then Fuyumi, the second try, a girl, but only ice, and weak at that. Then Natsuo, ice again, and even weaker than Fuyumi.

And then Shouto, the last, the perfect embodiment of both their parents. No matter that quirk marriages were barely legal and even less recognised, because Shouto was the living proof that it worked, the culmination of three failed attempts.

Natsuo didn’t hate him. He didn’t hate any of his siblings. He could understand why Touya had left, had needed to get out of the household before his own or their father’s quirks killed him. He had seen the burns across his body the day he left, skin almost blackened with the heat and curling off his body in sickening strips.

He didn’t hate Shouto. How could he? He barely knew him. He had grown up with Fuyumi, his elder sister, always with a smile on her face as if she thought that if she only kept it up then everything would be alright. She chose to stay in the same house that had broken half of her family, and still hoped that things could be better. Shouto was beginning to believe, too, still wary, still unsure, but willing to take the chance.

Natsuo didn’t know what to believe. He had sat crammed next to his sister in the back seat of a car and felt his heartbeat race as they watched their father fight a monster, and had felt a flash of fear for the man.

(and saw a man with metal stitches in his purple skin and eyes so blue they seemed to burn, and couldn’t help but wonder)

He had seen that same man walk in the house with a scar across his face to match his youngest son and the most defeated aura he had ever known, and felt conflicted.

Natsuo had spent his childhood angry. Angry that he was ignored, that his siblings were ignored, and angry that Shouto, his younger brother, was perfect. Angry that that perfection only caused his little brother pain. Angry that they were kept separated, angry that Endeavor cared so little about his failures that he considered even interacting with them would be a danger to Shouto.

And so he masked his hurt and pain with yet more anger, and left the house as soon as possible. He kept his head down in school, did well, did nothing to upset his father or their family name, and, as soon as he could, he threw himself into college and the chance to finally get away. He returned home only when Fuyumi asked him, and slowly began to meet his little brother.

It had only been that night that he even learned Shouto’s favourite food. He hadn’t even known that Shouto had a favourite food, much less what it was. And now he was supposed to spend a week playing happy families, ignoring the glaring absences of his mother and eldest brother, one stuck in a hospital halfway across town and the other who knew where.

(he wanted to know, wanted to see where that tiny little spark of a thought could take him, wanted to freeze the tiny flame of hope until he never thought about it again)

“Natsu-nii? Nee-chan says the tea is ready.”

Natsuo whirled round to the door. He hadn’t even heard it open, so lost in his thoughts.

His eyes automatically levelled to where Shouto should be, standing just a head or so smaller than him.

There was, of course, only empty space. Natsuo dragged his eyes downwards to where his baby brother now stood.

God, he was so small. Had he ever been this small before? Natsuo didn’t remember. With less than three years between them, his memories of Shouto’s birth were hazy. He didn’t remember if he was excited to have another sibling or not.

If he really thought about it, he thought he could remember not wanting another, that maybe Endeavor could learn to be happy with the children he already had than making another attempt. And then Shouto had turned out perfectly, and Natsuo was forever relegated to being the forgotten middle child. Without Touya’s flames and rebellion or Fuyumi’s status as the only girl, Natsuo had nothing special about him. Nothing memorable, and nothing special. It suited him, allowing him to leave the house and build his own life away from the Todoroki name. In a move of spite, he had even registered under Rei’s maiden name, determined that there would be nothing in his university files to tie him to the family, and it worked.

“Natsu-nii? Please come have tea. Nee-chan will be sad if you don’t come.”

Shouto’s little voice had a hint of tears in.

“Yeah, yeah, brat, I’m coming.”

Natsuo forced himself to look at Shouto. The two-tone eyes stared up at him, searching his face for anything he could tie to the vaguely-remembered faces of his childhood.

No, Natsuo didn’t hate his brother. Seeing the tears well up in the boy’s eyes, he felt a surge of guilt. It was never Shouto that he was angry at. This tiny child didn’t deserve his hate. It was their father he was angry at, not Shouto.

“Ok, kiddo, come on. Let’s not make sis cry.”

“Mm!”

Shouto turned happily to go out of the room. He paused in the doorway, turning back to Natsuo with a shy expression.

“I’m happy you’re here, nii-chan,” he said.

Natsuo felt a grin rising to his face despite himself. “Yeah? Me too, Sho.”

Fuyumi’s face when they made their way into the lounge was not happy.

“Geez, how long does it take to put your things away? Are you this bad in your dorms?” she scolded lightly. “Sit down, before the tea gets cold. If you want anything else, get it yourself.”

“Geez, sis, let me get in first. And my dorm is fine. Give over.”

Fuyumi subsided with a huff. “I’m your older sister. I’m allowed to nag you. Mom isn’t here to, so it’s my duty.”

“Shouto looked between the two of them, his head turning back and forth like a tennis match.

“Oh yeah? Well, maybe next time we go see her I’ll tell her you’re nagging too much! I’m nineteen years old, you know!”

“Well, act like it then! Some of my kids are better at tidying up than you, and they’re kindergarteners!”

They both turned away in a huff, aware somehow that they were teasing in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Shouto, however, didn’t seem to pick up on it. His face was wide open with hope, and he bit his lip nervously.

“What’s wrong, Shouto?” Fuyumi asked, worry filling her face.

The boy looked down at the table, picking at his tshirt again.

He mumbled something.

“What was that? You’re gonna have to say it louder. Don’t worry, dad’s in his office, he can’t hear us.”

Shouto looked up again at that, his eyes lighting up slightly.

He turned to Natsuo. “You said you saw mom. Can you see her again, soon?”

Natsuo’s face closed. Fuyumi had explained that Shouto had been hit with a quirk that returned him entirely to childhood, memories included.

Shouto at four years old had just been separated from their mother, and as far as he knew, he would have no contact with her for over ten years.

“Yeah, of course, and we’ll take you with us,” he said.

“Natsuo!” Fuyumi hissed. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I haven’t talked to her yet!”

Natsuo glared at her. “What, so you think she’ll refuse to see him? I don’t care. He’s four years old, Fuyumi! I don’t care how much she hates our father, she had no right to take it out on him! And he still wants to see her! Are you gonna deny him that, after everything that bastard put him through!”

Fuyumi returned the glare. “I am going to ask her. IF she says no, then we’ll work from there. But I’m not going to jeopardise her recovery by showing up unannounced with him!”

“So what, you’re going to ring up and say ‘hey mom, I know you hated our father so much that you threw boiling water over your youngest child simply because he looks like him, and the resulting trauma meant that that bastard locked you away, but Shouto’s been turned back to pretty much that day, and he really wants to see you, because, y’know, he’s a child, but we totally understand if the sight of a literal four year old brings back too horrible memories for you, it’s fine, Shouto will understand. We’ll just wait the week or so until he’s back to normal and you can bear to see his face again!’”

He sat back, face red with anger. Shouto was pale-faced and trembling, the sound of raised voices making him curl up into himself and retreat under the table.

For a long moment, Fuyumi was dreadfully still. Then, slowly, she rose out of her seat and stepped over to Natsuo.

“How dare you. You do not get to pit this family against each other, Natsuo. You have no idea what mom went through. Yes, Shouto is a child, but he won’t be for very long, and if I have to keep him away form mom until he turns back, then yes, you can be damn sure I will, because I want to see mom get better. Shouto can cope with it, and once he turns back I’m quite sure he’ll understand why. After all, it was him that she hurt, and it has nothing to do with you.”

She stalked out of the room, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

Somehow, Natsuo would have rather she slapped him.

“N-nii-san?”

If he noticed the change in honorific, Natsuo tried not to show it. “Yeah, Sho?”

“Does mommy really hate me? Yesterday nee-san said it’s not my fault that mommy hurt me, and it’s not my fault that dad sent her away, and she said maybe I could go see mommy, but now she just said mommy will be sad if she sees me. Why did she change her mind? Can I not see mommy after all? If you go see mommy, can you tell her I’m sorry for looking like dad? I really want mommy to get better and come home, but I’m never going to not look like mommy now, so will she never come home? Will I have to be like Touya-nii and leave home too?”

Natsuo listened to this with rage rising in his chest. So Fuyumi had promised to try, and now she was going back on her word? Shouto was still distrustful of people at sixteen, how dare she do that to him now, when he was back to the most vulnerable time of his life?

So much for ‘keeping the family together’.

“Well, if she doesn’t, I will. You want to go see mom, Sho? I’ll take you.”

Shouto looked up at his brother wonderingly, then immediately looked down again, shaking his head furiously and scrubbing his eyes.

“I don’t want mommy to be sad. I really want to see mommy, but if she’s sad then I don’t want to hurt her more. I’m ok. Nee-chan said I won’t be small forever, so I can wait until I’m big again. Do I get to see mommy when I’m big?”

His face was so full of hope.

“Yeah. Yeah, you do, Sho. Mom loves you. She loves when you tell her how you’re getting on at UA, and what you’re doing with your friends. You were even going to ask her if you could let that Midoriya kid meet her.”

Shouto gaped at him, confusion and wonder written across his face.

“I have friends?”

Natsuo clenched his hand into a fist under the table so hard he felt his nails break the skin of his palm.

“Yeah, you do. A whole class of ‘em. I’ve met Midoriya. You and him seem real close. He’s a good kid.”

Shouto absorbed this information in shock. “Mido-riya?”

“Yeah. But I’m pretty sure he’s asked you to call him by his first name. Izuku. He calls himself Deku, because it’s what that blond guy you trained with calls him.”

Shouto’s brows furrowed. “Deku? That’s not nice. Even dad doesn’t call us that.”

Natsuo felt a smile spread across his face despite himself. “No, he doesn’t. Tell you what, when you’re back to normal, you should invite Midoriya over. You guys are training together. Even dad can’t be mad at that, the kid was trained by All Might, after all.”

Shouto’s eyes went impossibly wide.

“Trained by All Might? There’s a kid at my school who’s trained by All Might? And I’m friends with him?”

Natsuo tried to keep his smile from dropping at the desperate hope on Shouto’s face.

“Yeah, you are. Here.”

He scrolled through his phone, searching for a video Shouto had sent him a few days before, of the two of them in class. From what he said, their teacher had found a stray cat and brought it into the class to ‘teach them responsibility’.

He turned the phone to Shouto, who stared at the screen in amazement.

Midoriya was grinning widely, green hair standing up messily from his head as the cat in his arms batted the soft tufts with a tiny paw. Next to him, Shouto looked surprised, reaching out to it hesitantly with one hand.

“It’s fine, Todoroki, you won’t hurt him. See, he likes you!”

Midoriya laughed and handed the cat over to him. “Support him like this. Yeah, that’s right. Aww, he’s snuggling up to you!”

“It’s because your left side is warm!” a girl’s voice came from the background, giggling. “Todoroki, you’re a cat whisperer! Mr Aizawa, can we keep him?”

“No. Get back to work, brats. Demonstration over. Todoroki, either sit down or hand him over. Also, name him. It’s too much bother for me.”

Shouto looked down at the cat in his arms, snuggling up to his left arm and purring loudly. A tiny smile rose to his face.

“Soba.”

“Right. Now get back to work.”

The video ended. Shouto kept staring at the phone screen even after it went black. Eventually, he looked up to his brother again, face questioning.

“Is that really me?” he asked.

Natsuo quirked a smile. “Yeah. That video was taken a few days ago. One of your classmates put it on your group chat, and you sent it to me. You really have a lot of friends, Sho.”

Shouto sat back down, absorbing this information. He bit his lip again.

“Maybe…if mommy saw this, she wouldn’t be so sad. If I can prove that I’m not like dad even if I look like him, then maybe she wouldn’t want to not see me. I could show her this and tell her that I can’t wait to be big again so she can be happier. Would that be ok, Natsu-nii?”

Natsuo set the phone down on the table and pulled Shouto towards him, ruffling his hair.

“Yeah. We can try that, Sho.”

Shouto reached up and grabbed his brother’s arm, trying to move his hand. Natsuo let him tug it away from his head, surprised when the boy instead drew it around himself, hugging him.

“I’m glad you’re home, Natsu-nii,” he repeated, burying his face in his brother’s chest.

Natsuo ruffled his hair again with his free hand and shifted until Shouto lay across his lap. He handed his phone to the boy, showing him pictures of his college and friends and explaining in a quiet voice. He let him play a few games, until the battery began to wear down.

Shouto’s stomach growled. Natsuo took the phone off him, raising it out of his reach. Shouto pouted, looking more like a child than Natsuo had ever seen him.

“Lunchtime, Sho. I’ll put my phone on charge, and we’ll go get something to eat. Tell you what, I’ll show you how to play basketball this afternoon, ok? I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty good at it. You can’t cry when you lose, ok? And no using your quirk to cheat. Just good, old-fashioned moves.”

Shouto grinned up at him. “Yeah!”

Natsuo ruffled his hair again.

“Stop it! Natsu-nii, you’re mean!”

“Oh yeah? Too bad, Sho. Now what do you want for lunch?”

“Soba!”

“Ok, we’ll see. I can’t promise anything. I might have some instant noodles in my bag, though. You can have that instead. Sound good?”

“Yeah!”

“Ok, great. Come on then.”

As they went out of the room, he could faintly hear their sister’s voice coming from upstairs.

“Hey, mom. How are you? Listen, I have something really important to tell you. It’s about Shouto…”

Natsuo narrowed his eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to believe in something better. Not for him, but for Shouto, at least.

Chapter Text

Enji entered the kitchen to find his two youngest sons standing at the worktop. Natsuo was holding the kettle, pouring a stream of boiling water over a large plastic cup.

Enji felt a flash of fear go through him at the sight of Shouto so close to the kettle, but the boy didn’t seem scared. On the contrary, his mouth was open in wonder, watching as Natsuo held the kettle up, then set it to the side theatrically.

“Ok, now get a spoon, Sho. You need to stir it, then leave it for a minute to cool down.”

“Ok!”

Shouto jumped down from the stool Natsuo had found for him to stand on, stopping dead as he saw his father.

Enji looked down at him, then over to Natsuo.

“Sho? You know where the spoons are, don’t you? It’s in the drawer over there. Oh, wait, I guess you can’t reach it-huh.” His voice cut off as he turned round, his aura turning defensive.

“What do you want,” he asked flatly. “I’m only getting my little brother lunch. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Enji tried to remain calm. “I didn’t say there was. I only want to know what exactly you’re planning on feeding him.”

Natsuo treated him to a bored expression before slowly grinning widely.

“Instant ramen, the staple of all good college students. Or is your prodigy not allowed such junk food?” he said, rebelliously.

Enji took a deep breath. At his knee, Shouto seemed to be holding his own breath, hands twisting in his jumper as he stood stock still, no doubt waiting to be told he couldn’t have it.

Enji looked back to Natsuo. “Just don’t make a habit of it. And make sure you have something healthier later. Both of you,” he said, before stepping past Shouto and taking the kettle himself, making a mug of coffee and taking it out with him.

Shouto and Natsuo were left in a state of shock, neither quite believing what just happened.

“Did…that just happen?” Natsuo murmured.

Shouto didn’t seem to understand, looking up at the worktop where the pot still stood, steaming.

“Oh, crap, we haven’t stirred it!” Natsuo cried. “Hang on, Sho, just a minute.”

Once ready, he handed the pot to Shouto, who had climbed into his chair by that point.

“Ok, eat up. It’ll be hot, so blow on it.”

Shouto did so, lifting the noodles to his mouth tentatively, eyes darting over to the doorway as if he expected Enji to return at any minute and confiscate it.

When their father failed to appear, he bit down, slurping in his haste to eat. His eyes went wide, and a smile stretched across his face.

Natsuo grinned at him. “It’s good, right? We’ll make a college student of you yet. Bet you eat tons of this in your dorms, anyway.”

Shouto beamed up at him.

“Something smells good,” Fuyumi commented, padding into the kitchen. “What did you make?”

Natsuo looked up at her, face closing off slightly.

Fuyumi sighed. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m sorry, alright? I got mad, and I won’t apologise for that, but I’m sorry for scaring Shouto. Anyway, I’ve just spoken to mom and told her what’s happening.”

“And?”

Fuyumi hesitated, biting her lip. Natsuo leaned forward unconsciously. Shouto had turned his head down, not daring to look at his sister.

Fuyumi sighed deeply. “She wants to see him,” she said simply.

“Alright! YES!” Natsuo cheered.

Shouto’s head shot up, disbelieving hope written across his face. “I can see mommy?” he asked. “Really? She won’t get sad if she sees me?”

Fuyumi nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. “Yes, Shouto. I told her everything, and she wants to see you. She’s really getting better, so you have to be good, but I promise she won’t be sad.”

She wiped away a stray tear. “Well, I can’t promise she won’t be sad, but it’s only because you got hurt, ok? Not from your scar, but from a villain. So if she’s mad at anyone, it will be the villain, not you, ok baby?”

Shouto thought that over, then nodded slowly. “When can we go see her? Can we go now?”

Fuyumi shook her head, laughing. “No, Shouto. We’ll go tomorrow morning, ok? Then it’ll be Sunday, so it’ll be quieter. Give mom a day to get used to the idea of you being small again, ok? Then she’ll be ready to see you tomorrow.”

Shouto nodded. “I can draw her a picture today, then, and make her a card to say I’m sorry and to tell her I love her.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Fuyumi said, smiling at him.

Her eyes fell to the table, and her smile fell into a frown.

“Natsuo, are you feeding him instant ramen?” she asked, chiding.

“Yep,” he replied around a mouthful. He slurped the noodles up with a bored expression. “The old man even said I could, so there.”

“Oh did he.”

“Yeah, he did actually. Sho, eat up before it gets cold.”

Shouto hurried to comply, settling back down in his chair and beaming happily. He swung his small legs underneath the table in childish delight.

After they had finished eating, Fuyumi dug around in her school supplies and produced a small mountain of craft materials, which she set on the table in the sitting room for Shouto. The boy looked happier than they had ever seen him, drawing with the unskilled art of a child but no less enthusiastic for it.

He tensed up when Enji entered the room holding another cup of coffee, but relaxed slightly when the man merely took a seat opposite him, raising one eyebrow at the sight of the table strewn with varying amounts of paper, stickers, glue and what looked suspiciously like glitter.

Shouto glanced up at his father with trepidation, eyes darting between him and the card taking shape beneath his hands.

Eventually, he seemed to build enough courage to speak up.

“um, dad?”

“Yes?” Enji tried to keep his voice low.

“I want…” his voice trailed off and he looked down again.

Enji sighed. “If it’s something for your mother, then ask. I thought your brother and sister made it clear. I won’t stop you from seeing her now. If there’s something you want, say so.”

Shouto blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. He still didn’t look convinced, but he spoke up determinedly.

“I want to make a crane for mommy, but I don’t know how. Can you teach me?”

He still looked scared, as if he fully expected Enji to drive him away again.

Enji was, for once, lost for words. After a while, though, he collected himself, and stood up, coming to sit across the table from Shouto.

“First, pick a colour. Your mother likes Amaryllis. Do you know what they look like?”

Shouto shook his head.

“They look like you,” Enji said.

If they were a normal family, and Enji a normal father, then he would have punctuated this by ruffling his son’s two-tone hair, making a joke about his ‘little blossom’, perhaps even telling him the myth (or a family-friendly version of it, at least).

He didn’t. It was still far too early for Shouto to react with anything but fear for Enji stretching out a hand to him, and he would not jeopardise his son’s (and his) healing so soon.

Shouto was oblivious to this, and simply looked confused.

“Like me?” he asked.

“Like you,” Enji confirmed. “They are red and white, just like us.”

“Oh.” Shouto looked down to the table, small hands pushing apart the paper until he found one he liked.

“Like this?” He held up a piece of paper with a red and white graduation.

Enji frowned. Knowing Fuyumi, she had carefully orchestrated this, working in her own quiet way to slowly piece their broken family back together.

“Yes, I think she would like that. So, watch what I do. No, don’t start with that paper,” he said as Shouto reached for the red and white. The boy withdrew his hand quickly, hurt flashing across his face.

“You’ll need to make quite a few before you get it right,” Enji explained. “Start with plain paper and work from there. We have all afternoon.”

“Oh. Ok.” Shouto grabbed a piece, staring up at his father expectantly.

Enji felt the muscles of his face moving towards a smile. He took a piece of paper and began to fold it, deliberately slowing his movements to allow Shouto to copy him.

As with everything, he learned quickly, his little fingers folding the paper with at first clumsy moves, then increasing precision. It wasn’t long before the table began to play host to a growing fleet of paper cranes, looking as though they were swimming across the polished wood.

By the end of the afternoon, the table could hold no more, and Enji was satisfied.

“Now you can make it,” he said. “You can do it on your own, can’t you?”

Shouto nodded determinedly.

“Alright. Go on, then.”

Shouto took the paper almost reverently. He worked slowly, determined to make it perfectly.

Enji was certain that Rei wouldn’t have cared if it was the most badly-made paper crane in the world, but if this was what it took to repair their relationship in the smallest way, then it was worth any amount of paper cuts and wasted card.

Shouto finished, holding it out in his hands expectantly.

“Is it good enough, dad? Will mommy like it?”

Cradled in his tiny hands was a perfect crane, each fold clear and precise.

“Yes, Shouto. It’s perfect. Your mother will be very pleased.”

Shouto beamed at him uninhibitedly. This time, Enji didn’t stop himself from reaching out and ruffling his hair. Shouto’s mouth opened to an ‘O’ of surprise, and he froze in shock, only the slight fluttering of the newly-made crane in his hands betraying his trembling.

“Now, I think we ought to clear this up, or your sister will be quite mad at us.”

“o-ok.”

Shouto hurried to comply, twisting his body with a look of panic rising to his face as he held the crane in his cupped hands, eyes searching the table for an empty space.

Enji plucked it from his hands, rising from his seat. “I’ll put this in the kitchen, out of the way,” he said. “Tidy up the rest of the table, and I’ll make something to eat. You can leave the rest of the cranes.”

Shouto stared up at him, mouth still open in surprise. “o-ok!” he said. He found the picture and card he had made, picking them up and rising to his feet, then turning on his heel to place them down reverently a few steps away.

Enji stepped out of the door and almost crashed into Fuyumi, who was standing with a very guilty expression. She hid her hand behind her back, but not before Enji saw the video camera she had strapped to it.

He raised an eyebrow, silently demanding an explanation.

Fuyumi sighed, shoulders hunching. “I just…you looked so cute,” she said. “I thought I’d show this to mom, to prove that you’re really trying. And Shouto just looked so sweet. He really looks up to you, you know.”

Enji surprised her by reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. I’m not mad. That was very thoughtful of you. And I’m sure it will be good to show Shouto once this wears off.”

He had the barest hint of a smile on his face, gone so quickly that Fuyumi wasn’t sure she caught it.

“Do you mean…are you planning on blackmailing Shouto with this?!” she hissed, clapping a hand over her mouth as her eyes darted to the oblivious boy diligently gathering up the paper.

“Perhaps,” Enji replied. “Is that not what most people do when this happens?”

Fuyumi raised her other hand, before realising that she still had the camera strapped to it. She shook her hand, uselessly, then unstrapped the camera, setting it down on the table in the hallway.

“W-well, yes,” she said, following Enji into the kitchen. “Oh, if you’re making tea, I’ll do it,” she offered.

Enji knew it was useless to stop her, and took a seat at the table, placing the crane down in the middle like a centrepiece.

“If you’re planning on embarrassing him, I don’t think it will work,” Fuyumi said meekly as she poured water into the kettle and set it on the stove to heat. “We don’t know for sure what kind of memories he’ll retain after this, if at all. Then again, if he does remember anything, it would be brilliant for him to have some good memories with you. Uh, I mean-“

“It’s fine. I’m well aware what kind of memory Shouto has of me,” Enji said, cutting her off as he saw Fuyumi’s apologetic expression.

“Well, you’re doing your best, and no-one can fault that. Natsuo will come round too, I’m sure of it,” she said, determinedly.

“I will not,” the teen in question said, startling them both.

“And what have you been doing all afternoon?” Fuyumi said, recovering from her shock with only the ease of an elder sibling could give.

“Work. In my room. What else?” he replied. “Just because I’m excused for the week doesn’t mean my coursework is. I have an essay worth half my grade due in two weeks, I’m not going to drop everything just because of Sho.”

“Your work ethic is commendable,” Enji said. “But don’t forget to relax occasionally too.”

“Yeah, yeah, so says the no.1 hero. Do you ever take breaks?” Natsuo shot back at him. “You’re a hypocrite if you’re telling me not to work so hard.”

“I have the public’s expectation of me to uphold. My duty is to respond whenever I am needed. That’s the role of heroes,” Enji answered, sternly.

“Yeah? Well, maybe the public should learn to sort their own problems out. No wonder you’re barely ever home, having to run to every little thing whenever someone calls. You have an entire agency of people working for you, don’t you? Have one of them deal with things once in while. Then maybe Shouto would be able to see you long enough to have any memory of you other than training!”

Natsuo glared at him, as if waiting to be reprimanded.

Enji found himself unable to reply. Natsuo had unwittingly echoed Aizawa’s words.

He was right. He did have an agency. Even if Hawks was, as he suspected, carrying out something behind his back (and he would get the truth from the winged hero sooner or later, he swore) he still had a building full of people ready to step in and do their jobs.

Many of them were probably straining at a chance to prove themselves. How much did he hold them back, he wondered, simply by being the best? Did his fame work as a shackles to them as much as to him, confining them in their roles beneath him, unable to carve out a path for themselves?

“You’re right,” Enji said eventually, startling them both. “I have plenty of people to work in my absence. That was my plan, and it hasn’t changed. I’ve already contacted my agency to let them know I will be absent for the next week. I’m sure any one of them is capable, and Keigo can hold them together and keep them in line. He could do with the responsibility if he ever wants to take my place.”

Fuyumi nodded. “Wait, what about the boys, Izuku and Bakugou?” she asked. “Weren’t you supposed to be training them too, for their internships?”

“Aizawa will handle that. I expect Toshinori will find something for them to do. Keigo is training one of their classmates as well; I haven’t met the boy, but he seems very capable. He placed third in the sports festival, so if he wishes to work for us in the future, I will support him.”

“I haven’t met Keigo yet,” Fuyumi mused. “I suppose you couldn’t invite him round just yet, but maybe after Shouto is back to normal you could introduce us?”

Enji nodded in thought. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. He and you are the same age, but he can be quite a brat at times.”

Fuyumi laughed. “If I can put up with Natsuo, I reckon I can deal with a proper hero. Is there anything he especially likes? What should I cook?”

“Geez, sis, he only said he’d think about it. No need to start planning a wedding,” Natsuo remarked.

He was treated to twin looks of disgust from both his father and sister for that.

“No thank you,” Fuyumi said primly. “I’m not interested in a relationship just yet. My kids keep me way too busy to think about dating." She raised an eyebrow, grinning. "If we’re talking about love lives, how about you? Being a good little college student, or trying for a stud yourself?”

Natsuo flushed deeply at that. “It…it’s none of your business,” he muttered, looking away.

“Oh, so there is something?” Fuyumi teased, delightedly. “Tell us. Found a special someone already?”

“It’s not like that!” he yelled. “I’m just…talking to someone, ok?”

Fuyumi refused to let it go. Her eyes gleamed wickedly, latching on to the chance to tease her little brother. “A girl someone, or a guy someone?” she asked.

“A girl, obviously,” Natsuo replied, lip curling slightly.

“Oh? No prejudices here,” Fuyumi said. “It’s an open society.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not a guy. She’s smart, and pretty, and probably way out of my league, but we’ve been talking since the first semester and I’m pretty sure she likes me too, so there! I won’t say anything more than that!”

Natsuo folded his arms and sat back, refusing to look at any of them.

“Natsu-nii has a girlfriend?”

They turned to see Shouto peering into the kitchen, the card and picture clutched in his hands.

“I finished tidying everything. Can we eat now, please?” he asked, staring up at them pleadingly.

“Of course, Shouto,” Fuyumi said. “Oh, shoot, the tea is done.”

The kettle had begun to whistle shrilly, and Shouto shot it a hesitant glance before darting towards the table and heaving himself up to sit next to his brother.

“Natsu-nii, do you really have a girlfriend?” he asked quietly, looking up at him. “Is she pretty? Like mommy?”

Natsuo kept staring at the wall, before eventually giving in to his brother’s look and unfolding his arms.

“No, she doesn’t look like mom. But she’s really pretty, and smart,” he said. “She does law. She says she wants to make a world where we don’t need heroes to catch the villains, just justice.”

“Oh. Will you take her home so we can meet her?” Shouto asked.

Natsuo glanced over at Enji, who raised an eyebrow at him, having remained silent throughout their exchange.

“Depends,” he answered shortly.

“If you are serious, then we would be glad to meet her,” Enji said calmly. “She sounds like she has a solid head on her shoulders. And intelligent, too, for law.”

“Of course, you’d only care whether someone would be an asset,” Natsuo muttered. He blinked rapidly, anger rising again.

Enji sighed. “I know you won’t believe me, but I do truly want you to be happy,” he said. “You have decided not to be a hero. If you like this girl as much as you say, then I am not against it. When you are ready to take her home, we will welcome you.”

Natsuo looked at him disbelievingly, raising a hand to his mouth and coughing. “yeah, right. sure,” he muttered, frowning. When Enji didn’t say anything to chastise him, he shot him another glance, not understanding.

“I-I’ll think about it, ok!” he burst out. “We’ve only been going out for a few weeks, it’s way too early to think about meeting families or anything!”

Fuyumi grinned at him triumphantly. “So you are going out, then!” she crowed.

“AARGH! Forget I said anything!” Natsuo groaned and laid his arms down on the table, burying his head in them.

“I hate you, Fuyu,” he mumbled.”

“No you don’t,” she sang happily. “Here, the tea is ready. Drink up. We’ll stop teasing you, I promise. But dad is right. Whenever you’re ready to bring this mysterious girl home, we’ll be ready. Just like he said for Keigo, just let me know what to cook and I’m good to go!”

“mm,” came the only reply, but Natsuo did eventually lift his head from his arms. His eyes caught Shouto, who was staring at him worriedly.

“It’s ok, baby bro,” he said, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“Ok,” Shouto replied. “I don’t want you to be sad. If Natsu-nii is happy, then I’m happy.”

“Exactly, Shouto. We’re all happy, aren’t we?” Fuyumi’s voice was slightly sharp, as if daring them all to defy her.

Natsuo sighed. “Yeah, we’re good.”

Sitting at the table with all but one of his siblings, his father the closest to accepting him as he was than he had ever been, and the prospect of seeing his mother tomorrow, Natsuo could, for the first time in a very long time, begin to believe it.

Chapter Text

Shouto didn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning in fractious excitement. His dreams were full of memories, good and bad, and he woke in the morning feeling more tired than before.

He sat through breakfast in nervous silence, darting glances towards Enji, as well as Natsuo and Fuyumi, as though he still thought they would take back their words.

The real problem came when they were finally ready to leave. Fuyumi suddenly tensed up, face-palming and sighing deeply.

“What’s wrong, sis?” Natsuo asked, worried.

“Uh, nothing. Nothing major,” she replied, looking at Shouto and scrutinising his body.

“Shouto, go stand against the wall, ok baby?” she asked. “I’ll be right back.”

Shouto complied, looking confused. Fuyumi ran out of the room, returning a few moments later with a tape measure.

“Right. Stand flat against the wall, Shouto,” she ordered.

She took his height, groaning when she lifted the end of the tape measure.

“I knew it,” she moaned.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s too small,” she answered to Natsuo’s enquiry. “Legally, he needs a booster seat, and I don’t have one. I guess I could ask any of the parents of my class, but it’s the weekend. Most of them will probably be taking their own kids out themselves, and as I’m not allowed to drive them, I don’t keep one.”

“Can’t he just sit on my lap or something?” Natsuo asked. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s the law, Natsuo!” she replied. “I don’t care if it’s temporary, I don’t want to get pulled over.”

“Well, he doesn’t have a winter jacket or shoes, either, and it’s snowing outside,” he remarked. “Which is the bigger problem?”

That was true. Fuyumi had only had suitable indoor clothes for Shouto, not any outerwear.

She sighed. “I’d really rather not buy anything, or go to one of those shops,” she said.

Natsuo rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s either that or we bundle him in a blanket on the back seat. He could sit in the footwell, then he wouldn’t move.”

Fuyumi glared at him. “You really are a college student, aren’t you?” she said accusingly.

Natsuo shrugged. “Hey, it works. Don’t knock it.”

“Gah, You’re hopeless. I’ll search the attic. Maybe we have something left over. I’ve certainly never cleared it out.”

She stormed off, leaving the brothers looking lost.

“I don’t mind sitting in the back,” Shouto said in a small voice.

“Urgh, leave her,” Natsuo said. “Go get the card you made for mom. We’ll put it in an envelope so it doesn’t get wet from the snow, ok?”

“Ok!” Shouto beamed and ran off to his room.

Natsuo retreated to the sofa and sat down, playing a game on his phone.

Fuyumi strode in about half an hour later, holding a small jacket and a pair of children’s wellies triumphantly. “Ta-da! Found it. See, I knew we kept all our old stuff.”

“Fine. Can we go now, then? It’s already late.”

“Oh, shush. We can spend all day with mom, you know they don’t mind,” she replied. “Shouto?” she called. “I’ve found a jacket, come get ready.”

They heard little footsteps come running down the hall. Shouto burst in, holding his card and paper crane carefully.

“We can go see mommy now?”

“Yes, we’re ready. come put your jacket on. It might be a little musty, but it’s fine.”

She helped him into it, then ushered him into the entryway to put his boots on.

“Ok, into the car.”

“What about the booster seat?” Natsuo asked.

Fuyumi flinched, guiltily. “Well, I’m sure it will be ok just this once,” she said.

Shouto didn’t seem to care, strapping himself into the back seat and sitting quietly, waiting patiently.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a long drive to the hospital, and Fuyumi’s fears of being pulled over remained unfounded.

It was still snowing, gentle soap-like flakes that drifted down slowly and stuck in their hair. Shouto looked up at the sky with childish wonder, blinking when flakes got caught in his lashes, making him sneeze.

“Ok, time to get inside before you turn into a snowman,” Fuyumi said, laughing.

They signed in, thankfully quickly after Fuyumi had talked to the staff yesterday and explained the situation.

Shouto had gone utterly silent, and was clutching his card to his chest like a lifeline. He stared down at the floor as they walked down the corridor, barely even glancing up until they reached the door where Rei’s name stood out in neat letters.

“Alright, just call me if you need anything!” the nurse said, leaving them with a smile.

“You ready, Sho?” Natsuo asked.

Shouto finally looked up at him. His face was pale, and he bit his lip nervously before nodding his head fiercely.

“Ok. I’ll go in first,” Fuyumi said. She opened the door and stepped in, and the brothers heard her speaking quietly, then their mother’s soft voice as she replied.

“Boys? You can come in now,” Fuyumi called.

Natsuo grinned down at Shouto. “Give me the card,” he said softly, and Shouto handed them over solemnly, waiting while Natsuo slid the door open to let him enter first.

As soon as it was open, Shouto stared across the room, two-tone eyes blind to everything but his mother. Rei’s eyes were fixed on her son, filling with tears as her hands lifted to her mouth in shock.

“Mom?” Fuyumi said worriedly, a hand reaching out to steady her.

Rei shook her head. “It’s ok. I’m fine, Fuyumi.”

Her eyes didn’t move from Shouto’s. She slowly lowered her hands, reaching out to him.

“It’s ok, baby. Come here.”

Her words seemed to unlock something in Shouto, and he flew across the room, grabbing on to Rei and hugging her as tightly as his small arms could manage.

She lifted him into her arms, automatically settling back onto the bed and returning the embrace.

“Oh, Shouto, don’t cry. It’s ok, I’m not sad, I promise. I love you so much, my little boy,” she murmured, rocking him.

“I missed you, mommy,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry I look like dad, I won’t ever be like him, I promise. Natsu-nii says I got lots of friends and a cat called Soba and I get to be a hero when I’m big again, so I won’t ever be like dad! I’m gonna be a hero and make sure you’re never sad ever again!”

Rei couldn’t stop her own tears from falling as she stroked his hair softly. “I know, baby. You are a hero. You told me last week that you were almost ready to get your license. I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Shouto finally managed to lift his head, face smeared with tears.

His eyes shone as he stared up at her.

“You are? Really?”

Rei nodded, smiling through her tears. “Really. You’ve made so much of yourself, Shouto, and I couldn’t be happier. All of you.”

She looked up at Natsuo and Fuyumi, reaching an arm out to them. They joined in the hug, arms winding around Rei and Shouto to enclose them all in a family embrace.

“I think Shouto has something for you,” Natsuo said when they withdrew.

Shouto nodded. “I made you a card, mommy!”

“Did you? Clever boy,” Rei said.

He wriggled off her lap, walking over to the table where Natsuo had had the presence of mind to place them down.

He carried them over like a king with his crown and sceptre, holding them out to Rei with childish anticipation.

Rei opened the card, tears filling her eyes again when she saw the childishly crude drawing of them all.

“I love you too, baby,” she said, hugging him again.

“I made this too,” he said, holding out his cupped hands.

Rei gasped as she saw the crane, perfectly crafted. “Shouto, that’s wonderful,” she breathed. “Did Fuyumi teach you how to make it?”

Shouto shook his head, suddenly nervous. “No, dad did,” he said. “I asked him to help me, and he did.” His words sped up as if he couldn’t get the explanation out quickly enough.

“He said that the colour is your favourite because it’s like us and it comes from a flower called an ama-amy-“

“amaryllis,” Rei murmured. Her eyes wandered over to the windowsill, where a jug of flowers stood, freshly delivered the day before.

“He said they’re your favourite,” Shouto said, as if trying to convince her.

“They are,” she replied quietly. “He never forgot. Even after everything, he still sends them.”

“He said they look like me,” Shouto said. “But I don’t know what they look like.”

Rei smiled down at him. She lifted him into her arms and carried him over to the windowsill.

“See? Just like you,” she said.

Shouto reached out a hand and touched the soft petal tentatively.

“It’s pretty,” he said wonderingly.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Rei said.

She looked over to Fuyumi and Natsuo, who were both blinking back tears themselves.

“Thank him for me, won’t you?” she asked. “My doctor still doesn’t think it would be a good idea for us to meet, but I know he’s trying.”

Her face fell slightly, but she soldiered on. “He must be worried about his image, with Shouto attacked like this.”

Her arms tightened around him defensively, and for a moment the two could see the hero she could have become, if things were different.

Fuyumi smiled, wiping away a tear. “Well, he’s taken the week off,” she said brightly. “He wants to be with Shouto for as long as this lasts. I still have to go in for the kids, but Natsuo is home all week, too.”

Rei nodded and moved to sit back on the bed, cradling Shouto close.

He seemed to be drowsy, snuggling into her with his eyes closed, his face almost hidden in her shirt.

“He must be tired. I don’t think he slept last night,” Fuyumi said quietly. “He really wanted to see you. It’s all he’s been asking. He was so worried that you would refuse to see him.”

Rei took a deep breath, staring down at Shouto. They could hear his soft breaths, indicating that he had fallen asleep in the warmth and safety of his mother’s arms.

“When you told me what had happened, I was terrified,” she admitted. “All I could think of was my failures, my mistakes as a mother. But I realised that even though I’m still terrified of the past, I need to face it. Seeing him was a shock, but it made me see that it was never his fault. None of you were ever at fault for anything. You know that, right?”

Fuyumi and Natsuo nodded, tears streaming down their faces.

Rei smiled, lifting a hand to wipe away their tears.

“Please don’t cry, darlings. I’m fine. We’ll get better, all of us. I’m so proud of you both. You have far more courage than me. Fuyumi, you’re far stronger than I could ever be, and Natsuo, you’re carving your own path too. I love hearing what you’re doing, in school, and work. Shouto, too. I think, soon, I’d like to meet some of his friends. Especially the Midoriya he’s always talking about. I’d like to thank him, for being such a good friend to Shouto. He seems so kind.”

“He is, mother,” Fuyumi said. “I’m sure he’d love to meet you, too.”

Rei looked down at Shouto again, and a smile spread across her face. “You know, from the way Shouto talks about this boy, I’m beginning to think he likes him.”

Fuyumi took a sharp breath. “Oh, does he?” she said. Her smile turned sharp. “I’ll have to ask him to dinner soon, then. Natsuo, you should bring your girlfriend home, and we can make it a double date.”

“Oh, yes, that sounds wonderful,” Rei gushed. “How is she, Natsuo? She sounds lovely.”

Natsuo flushed deeply. “She’s fine, mom.”

Rei laughed softly. “I’m so happy for you, Natsuo.”

They chatted for a while longer, until Shouto began to wake up, shifting to rub his eyes sleepily.

“I’m hungry,” he mumbled.

“I suppose it is nearly lunchtime,” Fuyumi said. “I know, why don’t we order in! We can’t exactly take Shouto out anywhere. Even as he is, someone could still recognise him.”

Natsuo pumped a fist in the air. “Alright, takeout!”

Shouto’s eyes went wide. “Takeout?”

Rei couldn’t help smiling again. “Here, Shouto, why don’t you go and put your gifts on the windowsill, next to the flowers? That way, I can always see them.”

Shouto nodded happily and slid out of her lap to do so.

“I’ll ask the nurses if it would be ok to order food,” Fuyumi said.

She returned a few minutes later, smiling. “They said it’s fine as long as one of us goes down to collect it,” she said.

“What would you like, Shouto?” Rei asked.

Shouto stopped in his tracks, looking confused. “Um. I don’t know,” he mumbled.

Rei felt her heart fall slightly. They so rarely ordered food, as Enji thought it was junk, and they never went out to eat either. No wonder that her little boy had no idea how to answer.

“Well, it’s snowing, so how about hot pot?” Fuyumi asked. “Does that sound good, Shouto?”

He nodded. “Yeah!”

“Ok, I’ll order it.”

It was a short wait before the food was delivered, and Fuyumi went to collect it. The rich smell filled the room as she returned, and Shouto’s eyes went wide as he watched her set out dishes on the table.

“All right, it’s ready!” she said.

She had had to ask the nurses for a couple of chairs, but soon they were all sat round the table.

“Itadakimasu!” she said. Shouto repeated it, clapping his hands together, and they all started to eat.

This had been the best day of his life, he thought as he dug in to the rich broth. Surrounded by his siblings and finally able to see his mother, there was only one person missing.

 I want to see Touya-nii too, he thought. Wherever he was, Shouto hoped that he had friends to eat and laugh like this with, too.

Somewhere across the city, walking down a narrow street, a man with ice-blue eyes and metal stitches in his purple skin stopped walking suddenly.

“Birdbrain, it’s cold. I want hot pot,” he said.

The man next to him laughed brightly, red wings tucked in tightly against his thick winter jacket.

“Alright, man. I’ll go buy some, will I?”

“You do that. I’m gonna head back out of this damn cold. You better hurry up.”

“Yeah, yeah, Dabs, I’ll get it. Go on, hurry up before you freeze, then.”

Dabi flared a flame to life in his palm, reflecting his eyes. “Not likely, birdbrain. I can keep myself warm just fine.”

He thought suddenly of a young boy with two-tone eyes and hair to match, wielding ice and fire in either hand.

“Just wait, little brother. I’ll teach him how to fear his own flames. We’ll see who’s number one then.”

Chapter Text

Hawks stormed into the dingy, rubble- and debris- strewn room of the League of Villains hideout with a thunderous expression to rival that of his employer.

Dabi gave him an impressed look, or as much as he ever did.

“Wow, birdbrain, who pissed on your breakfast?” he asked, whistling lowly as the man turned a glare on him.

“Can it, flameboy,” he shot back. “I’m not in the mood.” He slumped down on the worn sofa, the only piece of furniture the room really had. Dabi, for reasons unknown to anyone but himself, preferred to sit on top of the empty metal frame of the small army-style cot bed that someone had shoved (or, more likely, had been thrown) into one corner of the room.

Hawks had asked once, and received the reply “for the aesthetic, what else?” and rolled his eyes, and hadn’t asked again.

Dabi kept his lethargic gaze on the younger man. “Aww, poor little hero. Is it too much work playing double agent? We could always kill you and save us all the trouble.”

Hawks glared at him again. He slumped down on the sofa and shoved his visor over his eyes, wriggling when his wings wouldn’t fold comfortably.

“I’m just tired, that’s all. The big man has decided to take a week off, so now I have even more work. I hate being no.2. The sooner we can dismantle hero society, the better.”

Dabi raised one dark eyebrow at that. “The great hero himself, taking a week off? Don’t believe it. His ego is way too big to allow that.”

Hawks rolled over slowly to fix him with a disgruntled stare. “Would I be as run down if I was lying? Hell no. Guy called on Saturday to say he was taking the rest of the week off and wouldn’t be answering any calls. So naturally, as both his deputy and the no.2 hero, I have to do all his work and mine. This is exactly the opposite of what I need.”

Dabi’s eyes narrowed. “Why.” His voice was flat and edged with an anger that seemed oddly personal.

Hawks shrugged, the motion somewhat constricted by his prone position. “Don’t know. His kid just got his hero license, a couple weeks after everyone else. Even my kid got his before then, but Shouto failed the first time, so him and that explosion boy had to do remedial classes. I guess he wants to celebrate or something. His other kids are home with him too. I’m supposed to be going round to dinner soon to be introduced to them all, like a proper business partner.”

His voice turned languid, raising his hands to make quote marks as he said it. “Why did I agree to this,” he moaned, voice muffled by his wings as he draped them over his body. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t try to wake me up unless someone is trying to kill me.”

Dabi refused to let it go. “The kid got his license late? He won the sports festival, he should have got it straight away. Would have thought Endeavor would have pulled strings for it, since he’s daddy’s little protégé,” he sneered.

Hawks sighed deeply and rolled over to face him. “Well, he didn’t. There were a limited number of places and they were up against other schools, so he got beat. Sure, boss could have pulled rank on the examiners, but he’s going through a whole self-realisation thing and trying to ‘be a better father’, so he wanted Shouto to do it properly. Now he’s got it he’ll be back interning after Christmas, and I’ll be training Tokoyami again. He’s a good kid. I’d say you should meet him, but you already have.”

“Oh?”

“Training camp. His quirk is shadows, he kind of kicked your ass,” Hawks sniggered.

Dabi glowered at him. He summoned a flame to his palm and shot it at Hawks, who batted it away with a lazy wave of his wing before it even reached him.

“Oooh, are you gonna kill the birdy? If you are I wanna get his blood first!” Toga’s sing-song voice came from the stairs, where her and Twice were descending from the room upstairs that Shigaraki had commandeered as an ‘office’.

“Oh, great. Bloodlust Barbie and Discount Deadpool,” Hawks muttered.

“That’s mean/cool nicknames!” Twice said, mask lifting rapidly from a frown to grin and back again as his personality struggled to adjust.

“I’m not killing him just yet,” Dabi answered. “I’m grilling him for information.”

“Boo, I wanna kill him,” Toga said, hoisting herself onto the bed next to Dabi and swinging her legs. He shot her a disgusted look, which she returned with her usual alarmingly winning grin.

“So, watcha grilling him for? Are you literally grilling him? Burnt blood doesn’t taste nice, but I can use it if I have to.”

“Shut up. Birdbrain, answer me. Why is Endeavor not working? He wouldn’t take time off. He never has. It would affect his image, not to mention our plans.”

Hawks sighed again, theatrically loudly. “I. don’t. know. It messes with my plans too, y’know? Now we have to reconfigure the dates again, and it was already a tight schedule. Now everything is gonna get messed up.”

“What’s happening/I don’t care?” Twice asked.

Dabi ignored him, turning to Toga thoughtfully. “How much of Midoriya’s blood do you have left?” he asked.

Toga’s face went red with bliss. “Lots and lots, all hidden. Never enough for my darling Izuku. Why? Can I go get him, please? Say I can go and get more of his gorgeous blood.”

Dabi shook his head. “No. I just might need you to transform into him for a while. How long can you hold it?”

She thought for a while, calculating. “An hour, maybe.” She pouted. “He never lets me take enough.”

Dabi’s lip curled in disgust, to her delight. “Not that I don’t love my darling Izuku more than anything in the world, but why do you care?” she asked.

“Are you planning to attack UA again? Cuz if you are, I’ll need more time to plan. They’ve totally hiked up security after the whole thing with Chisaki and that little kid.”

Dabi ground his teeth at the memory. He didn’t give a damn about Chisaki, and he had been positively delighted to watch the terror on his face as Shigaraki dissolved the man’s arms, rendering him unable to hurt the girl ever again.

Even he never hurt us that badly.

 He dug his hands into the metal in his arms, letting the pain of his ruined skin ground him.

“We aren’t attacking UA,” he said, decisively, standing up.

“Birdbrain, come with me. You’re going to tell me everything Endeavor said to you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hawks muttered, but slowly sat up anyway.

The two left the room, speaking low enough that the other two couldn’t hear them.

“I don’t get it,” Twice said, for once his personalities in total agreement.

“Me neither,” Toga said, her eyes narrowing as a grin spread across her face. “But if it’s got flameboy this worked up, I bet it has something to do with Todoroki. And if it’s to do with Todoroki, then maybe it has something to do with my darling Izuku, too. This is exciting.”

Her face turned red, and she giggled to herself as her thoughts turned to her favourite victim.

Twice’s mask showed the confusion on his face. “I really don’t get it,” he said.

The empty air gave him no answer.

Contrary to Toga, he rather hoped that whatever Dabi wanted, he and Hawks could resolve it between themselves. After the fight with Chisaki had ended so wrongly, he just wanted some peace. After all, the real fight was coming, and he didn’t need a split personality to know that whatever angle it was viewed from, it would be huge.

Chapter Text

Away from the rest of the League, Dabi cornered Hawks, intent on getting an explanation.

“Well?”

Hawks glared at him, shaking his wings from being dragged.

“Well what? What the hell, dude. I told you what the old man told me. I can’t magic up anything else.”

Dabi’s gaze didn’t relent, ice-blue burning into him with more intensity than his flames could ever reach.

Hawks felt a rising confusion. He knew that Dabi had some kind of vendetta against Endeavor, and so far hadn’t pressed the issue.

If he was honest with himself, he was scared. Playing the double agent had seemed fun at first, a way of toeing the waters to see if villainy held any more perks than a hero, and yet for some weeks now something had felt off.

He found the lines becoming blurred. Perhaps it was a natural reaction, a way to inure and desensitise himself to the bloodshed and cruelty of the League which was supposed to go against everything he was taught as hero.

And yet, he knew it was more than that. More than ever, he found himself simply not caring about the civilians he was supposed to save. Oh, he did, same as always, but where he once enjoyed the praise and acclaim that being a hero brought him, their cheers and cries struck him as shallow, sycophantic whinings from people who would just as soon be crying for him again when the newest threat struck.

It didn’t end. He went to the agency and told them whatever the League were planning, was given more instructions of what he could carefully feed back to them, just enough so as to gain their trust and lower their suspicion, only to repeat it endlessly. Wash, rinse and repeat.

What a good little spy you are, Takami. See, this child we raised, hasn’t he grown up well? Isn’t he just the perfect hero we wanted? He’s done us all proud, haven’t you?

He was fed up with it. The plans were slowly being laid, piece by careful piece, one step close to the explosive end, and with each new piece he found himself slipping deeper into the anger and apathy that he tried to ignore.

Dabi was getting on his nerves, too. He returned the glare, shoving the man away from him with explosive anger.

“Just let it go, dude! What the hell is your problem anyway? So you’ve got beef with Endeavor, suck it up. So do we all. His kid ain’t exactly daddy’s little fan, hell, even I’m not after this. You think I’m happy that he swans off for a week and leaves me to do all his work? You can go fuck yourself, Dabi.”

He whirled around, refusing to face the other.

Dabi was having none of it, and grabbed his shoulder to turn him to face each other. Hawks reacted on instinct, shooting feathers out and wrenching away from him.

“Don’t touch me, you damn villain,” he hissed.

“Aww, poor baby, he’s all upset,” Dabi said, voice as dangerous as molten metal. “Turning sides, are we? Is playing the spy too difficult to you? Want to walk over to your heroes and tell them you quit? Don’t wanna sleep with the enemy any more, is that it?”

Hawks turned around despite himself, a cold thrill running through him.

Dabi burst out into laughter at the man’s sheet-white face.

“Oh, did I hit the nail on the head?” he asked.

Hawks didn’t reply. His face closed down, becoming eerily blank.

No-one actually uses third-rate b-movie lines in real life, you idiot, he thought.

Dabi kept laughing, then sobered just as quickly.

“Ah, you crack me up. Thanks for not replying, by the way. Didn’t wanna come across as even more of a villain."

 He put on a fake falsetto, warbling his voice. “H-how did you guess?” he asked, effecting shock and staring at the ceiling, seemingly ignoring Hawks, who stayed resolutely silent.

He snapped his head down to fix his gaze on the winged hero.

“You see, Birdbrain, I never believed anything from the start. You waltz in here, pretending to be a fallen angel, wings and all, and we’re just supposed to welcome you in with open arms? Not a chance. How stupid do you think we are? I know damn well you’ve been feeding whatever we tell you back to your hero bosses. They have you on a leash like a little puppy, making you run to us and parroting whatever they want us to hear, then call you back for treats and a pat on the head for a job well done.

Tell me, little bird, is it nice to be let out of the cage? Or does it trap you, knowing that you’re only ever free to fly as far as they want to you, and one day, when they have what they need to take us down, they’ll clip your pretty red wings along with the rest of us.

So tell me, Keigo Takami, are you ready to fall?”

Hawks remained silent. He supposed it was only a matter of time before his ruse was up, and he knew that there was nothing he could say to refute Dabi.

Really, he didn’t care. There was a strange sort of relief in knowing that at least one person wasn’t fooled by him.

That left was only one question.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Dabi’s eyebrow’s raised, mouth splitting into a grin.

“Oh, he finally speaks. Bet the ol’ gears are spinning right now, huh, birdy? Putting the pieces together, wondering? Want me to tell you?”

He leaned in closely, so far that their noses were almost touching.

“I’ll give you a clue,” he whispered, voice akin to a lover imparting their deepest secrets.

If they lived in a different world, one without heroes or villains or quirks, perhaps they could have been.

Hawks remained silent, again.

“I’m not joking when I call your boss the old man,” Dabi said.

Hawks couldn’t stop a slight frown passing across his face. Dabi’s words didn’t make much sense, but Hawks knew that that was the only clue he would get. His mind raced, trying to figure it out.

“Endeavor isn’t old,” he muttered, the words slipping out of his mouth unconsciously.

Dabi let out a bark of laughter. “Is that what you think? You’re not wrong. He’s 45. He'll be 46 soon.”

Hawks frowned again. “I know you hate him, but I didn’t realise you stalked him. Do you know his favourite food and shoe size too?” he asked, sarcastically.

Dabi answered them both, sounding too precise to be anything other than the truth.

Hawks felt a thread of worry spark to life in his chest. “Even I don’t know things like that, and I work with the man,” he said, eyes trained on Dabi.

The other grinned, even more alarmingly widely than normal.

“Oh, birdy, that ain’t even the half of it. I know more about that old man nearly anyone. Want to know why? Come on, you’re almost there, I can tell.”

Hawks didn’t want to think. There was a tiny voice in the back of his mind, the barest thread of a thought that whispered something too implausible to contemplate. He must be wrong. Dabi must just have stalked Endeavor, like a predator, trying to find out every detail of his enemy in order to break them down.

He didn’t realise that Dabi had closed the distance between them again until he felt the man’s hot breath on his cheek.

“Come on, little birdy, you’re getting boring now,” he whisper-sung. “At this rate I’m just gonna have to tell you anyway. It’s tragic watching you try and work it out like this.”

“I don’t care,” Hawks muttered, slightly desperate. He was regretting ever coming to the League this morning. He should have just stayed at home and watched crappy weekend TV, and never thought of coming to the very people he was trying to avoid getting close to.

“Time’s up, birdy,” Dabi grinned.

“I know everything about that old man, because he’s my old man.”

Dabi leant back, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Hawks frowned again. “What?”

Dabi’s face fell, and he groaned dramatically. “Come on, birdbrain, even you can work this out. Do I have to spell it out for you?

He. Is. My. Dad.” He ground it out between gritted teeth, still grinning manically, his face and eyes in terrifying contrast to each other.

“My old man. Daddy dearest. Darling father. The ol’ Vader himself. WHY AREN’T YOU SPEAKING!”

He lost the thin thread of his patience, manner changing in an instance to scream in Hawks’ face, making him jump back in surprise.

Despite that, he didn't react, face still carefully blank save for a slight frown, as if contemplating a vague annoyance. “Endeavor has 3 kids,” he said slowly. “Fuyumi is the oldest, she’s a teacher. Then Natsuo, who’s in college, and then Shoto is the youngest. I might not have met them all, but I think if he had another son, he would have mentioned it by now.”

Dabi’s grin turned positively terrifying in it’s intensity. “Oh, that’s where you’re utterly, utterly wrong, Keigo. Y’see, me and dear ol’ dad didn’t exactly get along. I was born with his quirk, you know. Flames, just like him. I was trained too, until Shoto came along. Just me and him. Course, he tried with Fuyu and Natsu too, but they’re weak. They have mom’s ice. It makes them weak, but kept them safe. But not me.

I got his flames. So as the eldest, I got it all first. But I wasn’t quite good enough. I had the flames, but I didn’t get the ice. He wanted both, see. That’s why he married mom. It wasn’t a happy marriage. It was a quirk marriage.”

He grinned at Hawks’ faint disgust. “Oh yeah, laws don’t mean shit to him. This was before it was illegal, though, so he got away scot-free. One flame hero plus one ice quirk, put ‘em together and what do you get? The perfect icyhot baby. Except that’s not what happened. Me, Fuyumi, then Natsuo. Three failed attempts before he got what he wanted in Shoto. The baby. The perfect fourth-time-lucky, his protégé.

Don’t get me wrong, birdy. I don’t hate my baby brother. I was beyond furious when I had to fight him. I took his little friend, spark boy, because I had to take someone, and I had to rough Sho up a little, but nothing more than he could handle.

And he can handle a lot. Because your hero, the no.1 hero, The Flame Hero Endeavor? He’s the farthest thing from heroic you can imagine.”

He leaned in to Hawks, lifting his hands to drag along his cheeks, pulling on the staples until they threatened to burst out of his skin.

Hawks knew what he was going to say, but that did nothing to lessen the horror of Dabi’s next words.

Dabi smiled as wide as his face would let him. In a low, chillingly happy voice, he said, mockingly, chillingly,

“You want to know how I got these scars?”

Hawks was frozen in place. Dabi was doing this deliberately, playing the villain to unnerve him. It was just a tactic, but it was working, and he just wanted him to shut up. He tried to raise his hands to cover his ears, however childish it seemed, but Dabi caught on and grabbed his hands, raising them to cover his own face, forcing Hawks to feel every ridge of the burned, scarred flesh.

“I didn’t entirely do this to myself,” Dabi said, as pleasantly as if he were discussing the weather. He crossed his hands behind his neck, stepping away as though reciting lines from a play.

“Some of it I did to myself, obviously, but most of it was dad. See, I can’t control my quirk. Not as much as he wanted. And when I didn’t learn, he kept going. He pushed. And pushed. And pushed. Until one day, he went too far. All of us get hurt by our own quirks if we go too far, even you know that. It’s one of the first things you learn. But dad, he doesn’t care about that. He only cares about results. So when I burnt myself, well, that was my own fault. I just needed to learn better control.

And I did, for a while. I tried, and I learnt, and I did whatever that bastard wanted in the hope that one day he would be satisfied. And when it turned out that Fuyu and Natsu had mom’s quirk, and weak at that, he trained me even more.

You know the real kick? I enjoyed it. I liked being the eldest, the strongest, the best, getting all of dad’s attention and training.

But then Shoto was born, and he was perfect. A perfect mix of ice and fire, ready to be built into the perfect heir.

And I realised something. I could deal with myself, treat my burns, patch myself up, and keep the rest of my family safe. But Shoto couldn’t. I saw that he was going to be put through exactly what I had gone through, and I got mad. Shoto didn’t deserve this. None of us did. We didn’t ask to be born, and we certainly didn’t ask to be his little experiments. So I kept training with him until Shoto was old enough, and once he was, I was forgotten.

He was five. Fucking five years old, and being hit so hard that he threw up on the floor of the training room, crying. And learning to hold it in, even then. Because that’s what he wanted. The flame hero does not care about his children. He cares about results. So us three, his failures, were kept away him from, because he didn’t want to sully his precious little boy from us lesser beings.

That was the last straw for me. Now that he had Shoto, he didn’t need me. But I wasn’t going to let him go through what I had. So I confronted him. It was the only time I ever managed to stand up to him. I told him that Shoto was a child, and way too young, and that if he kept training us then I would go the police and let them know exactly what he had done to me, to our mom, and what he was planning to do to Shoto.

I honestly don’t remember much of that night. I lost control, as hard as I tried not to. I think, towards the end, maybe even he realised it had gone too far, but by then it was too late. I stood there in the training room surrounded by flames and feeling the skin melting off my face and my arms.

I don’t know what happened after that. Maybe he sent me away. Maybe someone found me. I don’t know. All I know is that I woke up in a hospital one day with these things in my flesh and looking like something from a horror movie, and I knew that that was it.”

He stepped forward to Hawks again, his voice lower and more sinister than anything Hawks could conjure up in his mind.

“I am going to kill that man,” Dabi said. “And nothing will stop me. So, yes, I have beef with him, and if you aren’t going to tell me what the hell he is up to, then I will find out for myself. And what would you know, I know where he lives. So I’m gonna go and pay him a little visit, and scout it out for myself.”

He stepped away, turning leisurely towards the door.

“Oh, and birdy?” he said, turning back and fixing him with a winning smile.

“You don’t have to keep staring at me. If you like the touch that much, there’s plenty more where that came from. I ain’t gonna kill you, not just yet anyway. If you wanna mess around anytime, just give me a call.”

His eyes shone dangerously, and Hawks felt his traitorous heart skip a beat.

“I just hope you don’t mind playing with fire.”

With that, he disappeared out of the room, faint laughter following him.

Hawks was left standing in the empty room, wondering just where things had gone so terribly wrong.

Well, there was nothing for it now. He turned and went out of the room, not even bothering to shut the door behind him as he took a leap off the balcony and propelled himself into the air.

Whatever. He flew higher, into the clouds, screening his view of the city below him. Up here, he could feel the harsh chill of the wind as it cut into his face, the fur of his jacket flying up around him.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He descended under the clouds until he could see the blinking red lights of a tower and settled on the lip of the mast. Taking his phone out, he swiped across to see a message lighting up the screen.

By the way, my name is Touya. See you around, Keigo.

Keigo couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face. Perhaps he was going mad, losing his sense and reason as everything spiralled out of control around him.

He couldn’t find it within himself to care. Heroes, villains, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

This was personal now, and more than that, it was exciting.

He took his earlier thoughts back. Playing the double agent was worth it, after all.

Chapter Text

Dabi strode along the streets, keeping to the shadows unconsciously. It almost, almost surprised him how much he didn’t have to think about where he was going.

Muscle memory was truly a powerful thing, he supposed.

It would be a lot easier if he could fly, obviously. For a moment he envied Hawks, being able to do the one thing that most of humanity had dreamed about for centuries. Sure, he technically could launch himself into the air by using his flames as an incendiary jet-pack, but it hurt his palms if he did it for too long and it was incredibly difficult to aim himself anywhere, even straight upwards.

He used to try it as a child, in the rare times when Endeavor was out and their mother could relax a little. He would go out into the courtyard, on the stone where he couldn’t burn anything, and Fuyumi and Natsuo would laugh as he succeeding in hovering several inches above the ground and then flail his arms frantically as he tried to keep himself steady.

He had got the idea from an old film he had seen once. In that, the man had built himself a suit to fly in, fighting alongside heroes despite having no quirk of his own. There were other quirkless humans on the team too, but that man had stood out to Touya for his sheer tenacity, his arrogance in the face of his own weakness and his determination to succeed that saw him able to fight off any enemy, even aliens.

That man had lived in his father’s shadow, too. To Touya, he was an inspiration. He had even asked Rei for a toy of the man, once, and received a sad smile in return.

“Your father is a hero, Touya”, Rei had said, her laugh too sharp to be true. “Don’t you want one of him instead? Or even this one, it looks a little like All Might, don’t you think?”

Touya had shaken his head angrily. The other hero did look like All Might, and that was why he didn’t want it. All Might had trained in America, everyone knew that, and when someone had pointed out the similarities in his own costume, the man had burst out in booming laughter and answered,

“Well, of course! I think there’s a lot of similarities between us!”

Tall, blond, strong. The Symbol of Peace, either side of the globe, protecting the world from any threat it faced.

Touya had refused, and in the end, he had received an Endeavor figure anyway. He had hidden it in his room, and, after a long while of simply hiding it and trying to forget about it, he had decided to use it to fine-tune his quirk instead, mirroring the abuse of his own body on the toy like a horrific version of a psychiatrist’s doll.

Until one day after a particularly harsh training session had left his arms and legs covered in burns, face red and flushed from pain and tears. He had lain awake, in too much pain to even try and sleep. He took the toy out and began diligently recreating his wounds on it, until he ran out of space on the small doll.

His hand clenched around its arms and legs, ready to tear it limb from limb. He hadn’t realised how tightly he had been clutching them until they suddenly snapped under the strain, having become too brittle after so much abuse.

The sight made something snap in  him, too, and he clenched his hands into even tighter fists, opening them to let the melted plastic drop from his hands to stain the floor. He repeated it with the legs, watching as they too became red smears, and then took the body in his hands, softening it until it resembled dough and then crumpling it up as small as he could manage. The head he simply placed a finger against and let it heat until it melted, feeling the smarting on his own cheek from the slap he had received that afternoon.

He couldn’t even remember what he had done. It all blurred into one, pain after pain after pain until it was all he knew, all he could feel, all he could think about.

He slid open his window and launched the now-cooled lump of plastic as far as he could, watching as it bounced off a tree and landed somewhere in the bushes.

It didn’t help much, and he had sunk back to his bed with another hiss of pain, and resolved that one day, he would see his father suffer the same fate as his merchandise. After all, it was only what he had done to his son, so he ought to be fine with it happening to himself, right?

Wasn’t that justice, the goal of all heroes? To see things right, even to the end?

Dabi kicked a can viciously, furious at himself for getting caught up in the past. As he expected, he had followed the route mindlessly, staring down at the ground without seeing it while lost in his memories.

He stopped a few blocks away from the house itself, climbing onto a low roof and working his way up and along the houses until he had a vantage point out of sight of the house, but with an unobstructed view. He was probably even close enough to hear any conversation, if anyone came out. Not that that was likely, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.

The house hadn’t changed. Not that he expected it to, with the man’s utter adherence to tradition. He doubted it had changed at all inside either. New furniture was bought in exact copies of the last, even the plates and dishes all perfect replicas of each other. There had been plenty of them, either from Touya deliberately breaking them or his hands simply giving up as even the slight weight of a bowl stretched the tender skin of his palms and made his nerve endings sing in pain.

He sat there for what must have been more than an hour, simply observing, until eventually the door to the courtyard opened, and a small body flitted out.

Dabi’s body went rigid with shock. Even from this distance, there was no mistaking that two-tone hair, on a body much, much too small.

His mind raced. So this was what the old man was hiding, was it? Had he been too worried for his image that he couldn’t even tell his own agency what had happened? Couldn’t even say the words ‘my son got hit with a de-aging quirk’, as though saying it would be tantamount to admitting that his protégé was not immune to attack?

And yet, Shouto was perfectly used to being attacked. Touya had fought him himself, for god’s sake! He had seen the anger in his baby brother’s eyes, but it was not that that had stopped him in his tracks, but the utterly blank unrecognition in his mismatched eyes. It had only been for a moment, yet it was enough, and Dabi had had to grab the other boy instead.

Dabi didn’t understand. Why would Endeavor bother to take time off work for something as trivial as this? Couldn’t he just delegate it to nannies as he always had, or even just leave him to fend for himself? It wasn’t as though their home was prone to attack. Even the location was kept secret to anyone who didn’t need to know, and that was an incredibly small list.

There must be more to it than that. Touya stared intently at the tiny figure, not even realised that he was biting his lip until he tasted blood and spat, the metallic taste mixing unpleasantly with that of his stitches.

Natsuo joined Shouto outside, carrying a football under one arm, which he placed on the ground and kicked over to Shouto gently.

Their brother didn’t seem to know what to do, staring up at him before tentatively raising his leg to kick it back, only succeeding in losing his balance and falling, the ball barely moving a few feet.

Natsuo laughed, the sound reaching up to Touya, and it ripped something apart in his chest.

When was the last time he heard that sound? Hell, when was the last time he had even seen Natsuo? His little brother was 19 years old. What was he doing? Was he in college? Working? He presumably wasn’t a hero, or he would be in the League’s records. Had he kept a low profile? Managed to escape from the house somehow, long enough to learn how to laugh freely.

Touya kept as still as a statue, feeling as though the sight of his brother had frozen him as surely as his quirk.

His eyes were trained on his siblings, and he barely breathed in case doing so would shatter some kind of spell.

He couldn’t stop a gasp from escaping him when he saw Fuyumi, though. His sister stepped out onto the veranda with a tray of tea and snacks, calling for the boys with a light voice, and Shouto ran to her, stopping just before he reached her. He took off his shoes and placed them carefully on the ground, then lifted himself up to sit next to her. Natsuo did the same, with considerably less grace, and the two sandwiched Shouto between them.

From this distance, they almost looked like a family themselves. He couldn’t tell how old Shouto was from his position, but he estimated it was probably around 4 or 5. Endeavor was nowhere to be seen, and Touya wished that it would stay that way. Let Shouto experience this small moment of happiness, of playing ball and drinking tea with people who loved him unconditionally and who would never hurt him.

Touya wanted it so badly it almost hurt. He stood up, hissing as his legs protested against being stiff for so long. He ignored the pain, standing and turning to make his way down across the roof.

He slipped away as silently as a shadow, oblivious to the tiny face that tilted up at the flash of metal in the sunlight.

“Nee-chan, there’s someone on the roof over there,” Shouto said.

Fuyumi looked over to where he was pointing. “No, there’s no-one there, baby,” she said. “If there is, it’s probably just someone cleaning their windows.”

“But I saw something flash,” he insisted. “They had a cloak. I saw it swoosh when they got up.”

Fuyumi shot Natsuo a pointed glance. “Natsu, did you let him read your comics again?” she accused lightly.

The teen grinned, rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah, but so what? It’s fine. You said it, someone’s probably cleaning and their curtain swept out the window. What, you think someone’s watching us or someone?”

He put on a spooky voice, setting his cup down and reaching out to Shouto. “’Oh no, save us! A scary villain is gonna get us! Help us, someone! Anyone! You’re our only hope!’”

He grabbed Shouto and started wrestling him, which turned into tickling him, making the boy squeal with laughter.

Fuyumi tried to glare at him, but it dissolved into a smile.

“Boys!” she chuckled, affectionately chiding.

“What is going on?” a deep voice asked.

Fuyumi looked up to see Enji staring down at them, the slightest hint of confusion on his face. He frowned at Natsuo, who was now holding Shouto upside-down and gripping the boy’s foot with his hand, the other raking along his sides while he tried to squirm away, giggling.

“Shouto said he thought he saw someone on the roof over there,” she explained, pointing. “I said it’s just someone cleaning. There’s nothing there.”

Enji followed her gaze, eyes narrowing at the spot.

“He’s been reading Natsuo’s comics. It’s fine, he’s just got an overactive imagination, all kids do,” she said.

Enji hardly looked convinced, striding out into the courtyard to get a better look.

Fuyumi and Natsuo shared a glance. Natsuo righted Shouto, who’s smile slipped a little as his siblings gathered up their shoes and ushered him inside without a word.

Enji stood there for a long moment, before apparently deciding that there was indeed no threat to be seen, and went inside the house.

From his position under the low roof, Touya sat, mind blank as his heart pounded with emotions he could barely name, let alone stop. It was a long, long time before he could even think of moving, but this time he barely even felt the pain as he slipped down from the roof and landed silently on the ground.

He made his way back to the League’s hideout in a daze, entering and stumbling up the stairs blindly, slamming the door to the room he called his and sliding down against it.

After what could have been hours, he took his phone out.

Typing slowly against the glare, he sent a single message.

I know what’s up.

In an apartment across the city, Keigo heard his phone buzz. Locating it amongst the take-out dishes, he picked it up, tuning out the over-hyped yelling of the family-drama TV show he had been watching, fake as it was under the bright, staged lights of a set.

Reading the message, he grinned.

Oh yeah?

Barely a moment later, his screen lit up again.

How fast can you fly?

Keigo raised an eyebrow.

Fast enough. Why?

I need you to transport something for me. Get it wrong, and you’re dead.

He felt a thrill of excitement again.

Sure thing. Give me the details.

His phone began to play his ringtone, loudly.

He answered. “What’s up? Can’t tell me details over text? What kind of job are we talking?”

“Meet me at the usual place. I’ll tell you once we’re there. No more details.”

The phone went dead, and Keigo was left with a chill.

Dabi’s voice was the most chilling he had ever heard, and not through fear. Whatever emotions were present in the other man’s voice, Keigo didn’t know how to unpackage it.

But whatever it was, he wanted to know.

He grinned. This was why he liked Dabi. With all the truths that had just been revealed, Keigo thought he had a pretty good idea what the man was about to tell him.

For a moment, he imagined the sight of Dabi and Endeavor clustered on the lime-green sofa of the TV show, and burst out laughing at the thought.

He turned off the TV, grin stretching as he watched the screen die and be replaced with his reflection.

He walked out of the apartment, mood more hopeful that it had been for a long time. He had been briefly fearful that their argument would be the end of whatever existed between them.

Now, he saw that it was only the beginning.

Chapter Text

Keigo gave Touya a flat stare.

“You want me to kidnap Shouto,” he repeated. “From your house. With your dad inside. Who is also my boss. And your mortal enemy.”

When Touya didn’t reply, Keigo ran his hands through his hair, sighing deeply.

“Look, I get it, he’s your kid brother, and from what you’ve just said I totally get why you think he should get out of that house, but kidnapping ain’t the way to go about it. Shouto hasn’t seen you in twelve years, you think the kid’s just gonna hold his arms up and let you carry him off? Besides, where would you take him? Back to the lair? Shigaraki hates him and Toga wants to go vampire bride on him. I don’t think they’re exactly the kind of freaks you want to bring a little kid to, let alone him.”

Touya stared back at him. “Then we go to your place.”

Keigo shot him an irritated glance. “Yeah, and have your dad kill me for it. No thanks. I fight with him, I’m not about to see what it’s like from the other side.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, seeing Touya’s face drop into a sneer.

“Poor baby bird, scared of betting burned. Dear old dad too much for the hero?”

“Touya, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that-“ Keigo tried to apologise, but Dabi stalked past him.

“Go home. I’ll do it myself. Make it a proper family reunion.”

He swept past and slammed the door. Keigo heard his footsteps fade on the metal stairs outside, and ran his hands through his hair, sighing deeply.

After a moment of wrestling with himself, he flung the door open and ran.

“IF I did say I would do it, do you even have a plan?” he asked, refusing to look at Touya.

“Wait till night, sneak in, grab Sho and take him to your place,” Touya replied flatly.

“What? Why mine? I can deal with him as a teen, but I’m not letting a little brat in my apartment, thanks.”

Touya shot him a glare. “Shouto isn’t a brat. And there’s nowhere else I can take him, unless you think I should go to the lair and let Shigaraki and Toga near him?”

Keigo shuddered at the mention of the other members of the league, and sighed heavily. “Fine, my place then.”

He stopped walking, fixing Touya with a hard stare.

“How far do you want this to go?” he asked, face serious. “If you just want to see your kid brother, then wasn’t it good enough to watch him from a distance? Why bother risking everything to talk to him? Shouto hasn’t seen you in twelve years. He probably thinks you’re dead. Even given that it hasn’t been that long for him right now, do you really expect him to recognise you on sight? It’s a bit late to pretend you're in a Halloween costume, don’t you think?”

Touya shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, breath huffing in the cold air. “You think I haven’t thought this through? I’ve spent the last twelve years thinking how I could have got Sho out when I left, and I know what to do.”

His gaze was fixed on the pavement, and his paces quickened, forcing Keigo to keep up with him. “I should have done it back then. Left, way before it went too far. I prepared for it. I kept a bag packed in the back of my closet, waiting for a chance. If it hadn’t gone the way it did, maybe I would have been able to one day.”

Keigo kept his mouth shut, not knowing what to say. Touya continued, “so yes, I have a plan. Wait till dark, sneak in, grab Sho, and get out. If it’s dark, he won’t see my face, but my voice hasn’t changed that much. He should recognise me well enough. He’s already used to Fuyumi and Natsu being older, so it shouldn’t be difficult for him to recognise me too. Then I’ll take him to yours, and he can stay there until the quirk wears off.”

“Woah, hold up, until it wears off! No way, man. You catch up with him, have a heart-to-heart, that’s fine, but I’m not looking after a kid for a week. This might have escaped your notice, but you and Shouto are the sons of Endeavor. He can’t just go missing. Endeavor would put up a search party as soon as he finds him gone, and there’s only so much I could get away wi-“

He stopped, an idea suddenly coming to mind.

Touya looked up at him, eyebrow raised in question. “What.”

Keigo glanced at him, one hand raised to his chin in thought. “Well, if you managed to pull that off, and if Shouto doesn’t scream bloody murder, then perhaps it could work. But I’m gonna suggest a change to your plan.”

Touya nodded, letting him carry on. “So, Enji gets up really early. Like, stupidly early, which is a pain in the ass for me because I hate work meetings as it is. So, he gets up to go for a run, right? If you timed a break-in for when you know he’s out, then you could grab Shouto then. His normal run is about an hour. Would that be enough time?”

Touya’s gaze turned appraising. “Maybe you aren’t so much of a bird-brain after all.”

Keigo raised his eyebrows. “Gee, thanks,” he said flatly.

His eyes narrowed in thought again. “How close were you to your siblings?”

Touya frowned. “Closer than Sho. We were allowed to play together. I was closer with Fuyumi than Natsuo. Why?”

Keigo let out a breath. “Do you think they have any idea who you are? And if they found out, what do you think their reactions would be?”

Touya’s eyes widened as the idea began to take shape in his mind. “I have no idea whether they know or even suspect who I am, but if they did, I’m pretty sure they’d understand. Fuyu was always trying to convince me not to fight him, but Natsuo backed me up. Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

Keigo shrugged. “Can’t call it kidnapping if the whole fam’s behind it.”

Touya’s lips curled in a strange smile. “Are you sure you’re really a hero? You’re seriously planning the logistics of child kidnapping.”

Keigo shrugged again. “Don’t tell anyone, but your dad can be kind of a dick sometimes. Shouto is a good kid. I think when he sees you, he’ll understand. Villain or not, you’re still his big brother.”

He took a deep breath. “I think we need to make some plans. Come over to my place, and we can work this out properly.”

He turned around and began walking in the direction of his apartment. Touya followed, an amused look on his face.

“If you keep this up, you really will be a villain,” he said.

Keigo turned to shoot him a winning smile. “Only cuz you make me that way. See you at home, Dabi.”

He jumped up, unfurling his winds in a theatrical gust that made Touya shield his eyes and set the corners of his coat flapping.

He stared up at the red-winged blur in the sky. Luckily, this part of town was bare, so his little stunt had gone unnoticed.

Touya’s lips curled into a true grin this time.

“You’re on, birdy.”

In the end, it was almost too easy. Touya entered Keigo’s flat to find the man on his phone, chatting to someone. He gave Touya a thumbs up, grinning wildly.

“Care to share?” Touya said, flopping down on the worn sofa next to him.

Keigo leaned back and put his arms above his head, turning his head to the other with a satisfied smirk.

“That was your brother,” he said casually.

Touya’s eyes narrowed. Keigo continued, “I thought about it, and I realised that we don’t have to go down any subterfuge route. What if we did this in broad daylight, instead? So, I hacked into Shouto’s social media. Don’t look at me like that,” he said in response to Touya’s glare. “All the kids are on it these days. You’re just out of the loop, boomer.”

Touya’s glare intensified. Keigo ignored him, still grinning.

“Anyway. I know for a fact that Shouto has social media, because Midoriya lives on it, and he’s always taking pictures of them both. You should see Shouto’s face sometimes, he’s so stiff its funny. Midoriya is working on getting him to open up, but for the moment your baby bro is having none of it. Look, his account is literally nothing but memes and cat photos. Oh, and pictures of your class, too. They're a close bunch of kids. Your bro is actually pretty popular."

Touya looked stunned at that, his lips twitching as though trying not to smile. Keigo didn't stop his own smile forming. You really are a doting big brother, aren't you? he thought. 

"Of course, boss has a no-phones policy when they’re on internship, but frankly, the boys are 16, of course they aren’t gonna obey that," he continued, not letting on that he had seen Touya's expression. "I don’t give a crap whether Tokoyami has his on him as long as he doesn’t mess around with it when we’re on patrol. And he’s a good kid, so he doesn’t. But I’d rather them all have their phones on them in case anything happens.

Anyway, point is, I found Shouto’s account, and what do you know, he’s friends with his sibs. So I found Natsuo and messaged him, and he was interested, to say the least. He’s just agreed to set up a meeting.”

Touya listened to this silently. When Keigo finished speaking, he inhaled sharply, letting it out slowly.

“Did you tell him about me?” he asked quietly.

Keigo shok his head. “No. That’s not my place. All I said was that I have info about something that could affect your dad, and if he wanted to know, then we should meet up. I wasn’t completely sure he would agree, but he did.”

Touya nodded. “Alright. Where are you planning?”

“His college. He says most people have already gone home for Christmas, so it should be quiet. He knows places you won’t be seen, so there’s no risk.”

“Is he bringing Sho with him?”

Keigo shook his head. “I told you, I didn’t give him any details. I thought you two would want to flesh it out together. Remember, I’m a double agent. Officially, we’re enemies. If this goes wrong, I’ll have to pretend I don’t know anything. It’s actually safer if I don’t know the full details of whatever you plan, and then I can claim deniability if shit hits the fan.”

“It won’t,” Touya said.

“I hope not. In any case, you’re meeting in half an hour. Here’s the place,” he held his phone out, and Touya took it, memorising the location.

“I’ll wait here for you. Say hi to Natsuo for me,” Keigo said.

Touya gave him an appraising look. “You know, birdy, sometimes you can actually be kind of smart.”

“I know. Thank me later, once this all works out.” Keigo grinned, grabbing the TV remote again.

“Oh, I will,” Touya said, voice smouldering.

“Careful, flame boy. A guy could get burned, talking like that. Now go, Natsuo will be waiting for you, and you don’t want to let your little brother down, do you?”

“Shut up, birdbrain,” Touya said, almost fondly.

“Yeah, yeah. Get gone. I’ll order takeout for when you get back.”

“How domestic.”

Without looking at him, Keigo lifted the TV remote warningly. “Get out.”

“yeah yeah. Love you too, birdy.”

Touya made his escape to the sound of Keigo’s muttered reply.

Keigo was right. His brother was waiting for him. He stepped out into the street, feeling the first flakes of snow hitting his face and sizzling against the heat of his skin.

I’m coming, brother.

Chapter Text

Touya made his way through the snowy streets, using every back-alley and diversion he knew to ensure he wasn’t seen. Not that it was really needed, since there were hardly any people out anyway, even for a Saturday.

Perhaps it was cold. Touya breathed out, seeing the cloud of his breath hang heavy in the air. He didn’t feel the cold, couldn’t feel cold the same way that his brother and sister didn’t feel the heat as much. One of the benefits of a temperature quirk was the body’s ability for self-regulation, after all.

Of course, it was also the greatest weakness. Every quirk user asked themselves the same question once they were old enough to understand: why was it that each person’s own quirk was both their greatest strength and source of pain? Why did overuse hurt them so much? Was it a natural fail-safe built into the body, to lessen the damage of their power? Was is some kind of hubris, a built in limit to stop people from rampaging unchecked?

There was no answer. It was simply a fact that a child had to learn; that if they overused their quirk, it would inevitably hurt them in some way. There was no way to learn other than experience. Unlike touching a hot stove, there was rarely any indicator of what the limit would be, differing as it did for each individual.

You hurt, and you learnt. That was how it worked.

Most parents tried to stop their children from overexerting themselves.

Most parents comforted their children, stopped their tears with hugs and taught them gently not to go that far again.

Most parents learnt their children’s limits, and never tested them further, and told their teachers, too, to keep them safe.

Todoroki Enji was not most parents.

Todoroki Enji forced his children to learn their limits far too young, and to push through them.

Todoroki Enji saw limits as a weakness, a barrier that could be broken if only it was hit hard enough.

Todoroki Touya had learnt his lesson, over and over and over again.

Todoroki Touya was dead, and Dabi had risen from his ashes.

He would not let his brother suffer the same fate once again.

Touya’s furious steps carried him forwards almost unknowingly, until he looked up and realised that he was in an unfamiliar part of town. Cursing under his breath, he took out his phone and checked the directions Keigo had sent him.

He wasn’t too far away. Pulling his hood more securely over his head, he followed the directions, until the tall building of the college came into view.

He took a deep breath.

Where are you, Natsuo?

He says he knows places you won’t be seen, Keigo had said.

That was very helpful, but he didn’t actually say where, Touya thought angrily.

He looked up, eyes scanning the grounds for white hair.

His phone buzzed suddenly with a text. Turning the screen on, Touya saw that it was just a picture, of a bench set in a secluded corner.

He scanned the grounds again, trying to get his bearings. He saw what looked like the top of the tree in the picture across the building, and made his way towards it.

There was a lone figure sitting at the bench, head bowed over their phone. Hearing Touya’s footsteps crunching on the snow-covered grass, they looked up.

Both took a sharp breath as they saw each other for the first time in twelve years. Blue met grey, staring silently.

It was funny, Touya thought. For all their hatred of him, he and Shouto had inherited Enji’s looks, with his narrow, ice-blue eyes and sharper features, while Natsuo and Fuyumi were copies of Rei, their eyes soft grey and faces rounder, more open, their hair as white as the snow they commanded.

Perhaps it was that same hate that shaped them, moulded them into permanent expressions of distrust and pain, while Natsuo and Fuyumi saw the world in a kinder light, able to live in the outside world away from the weight of their father’s name and all it entailed.

Natsuo was the first to move. He rose from the bench, grabbing a cup as he did so. He held it out as though it was a peace offering, his expression warily open.

“It’s just plain. I don’t know what you like, so…” his voice trailed off.

“It’s fine. Thanks.”

Touya took it and sat down, leaving Natsuo to sigh heavily and take a seat again.

“So, first off, what do I call you? Dabi, lord of darkness, evil villain extraordinaire? Big brother? Jackass? I guess anything but Touya.”

Touya accepted the barrage, knowing it was deserved.

“Whatever you want,” he answered, flatly.

Natsuo huffed. “Fine. Dabi, then. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not avoiding you, it’s just…gonna take a while to sink in. That you’re, y’know. Alive.”

Touya raised an eyebrow. “Not that I’m one of the greatest villains in the city?”

To his surprise, Natsuo shrugged. “And you hurt Sho, threatened his classmates and kidnapped one of them, though from all accounts the kid is a total ass and probably deserved it, and I’m sure you’ve hurt way more people, maybe even killed people. I’m not forgiving you for that.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Touya replied.

Natsuo shot him an irritated glare. “Would you shut up and let me finish? I’m not forgiving Dabi for what he’s done. Sure, I understand it, being a villain means you don’t exactly go round saving cats from trees and helping grannies across the road, but that doesn’t mean I can accept what you’ve done.”

He looked straight at Touya, staring at him intently.

“But, I could learn to forgive Touya. My big brother.”

He blinked rapidly, tears forming in his eyes.

“Man, I swore I wasn’t gonna get emotional,” he said laughingly, self-deprecating. He swiped a hand across his eyes, biting his lip.

“I’m just so glad you’re alive,” he whispered.

“So am I,” Touya said.

That got a laugh out of Natsuo, making him cough. He sniffed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

“Ok. I’m not gonna ask what happened to you. I don’t want to know, not right now, and I think if you ever want to tell us it should be for all of us to hear. I don’t want to know how you got into all this.”

He met his eyes again, intently. “I understand, though. Whatever you’ve done as Dabi, I can’t forgive it, but I get why. I get why you had to leave. I’ll never know what it was like to have gone through what you did, but I lived through it, and I understand. You want to make him pay, and I’m right behind you for that.”

He sighed. “What I’m not totally behind is you dragging Sho into it, but I trust you. Just know that if you hurt a single hair on his head, I’ll sell you out to every hero in town.”

“I won’t,” Touya said stonily.

Natsuo, surprisingly, grinned at him. “I know you won’t. I just wanted to say it, cuz it sounds cool.”

Touya rolled his eyes. “How heroic of you. Do you want to know the plan or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, get to it.”

Touya rolled his eyes again. “So impatient, little brother. First, I wanna know something. Why did you agree to talk to the birdbrain in the first place? You always go around accepting messages from strangers?”

Natsuo blinked at him. “Birdb- oh, you mean Hawks? Well, yeah, I was kind of surprised, but it’s not like he’s a stranger. He works with him, so I vaguely know him. I don’t know his real name, but I assumed he was just a ‘man of mystery’ kind of thing, you know? He’s not the only hero who likes to keep things private.”

“Keigo.”

“What?”

“His name is Keigo. Keigo Takami,” Touya said, face blank.

Natsuo’s brows furrowed in thought. “Wait. Takami? Isn’t that the name of the kid you were best friends with in middle school?”

Touya didn’t answer, but the silence was answer enough.

“Holy shit,” Natsuo said. “Well, that clears things up then. Whatever you’re planning, count me in.”

Touya took a sip of his coffee before answering, as though composing himself. He set it down slowly and steepled his fingers before meeting Natsuo’s eyes.

“You can’t let a word of this pass,” he said. “Not to Fuyu, not Sho, not your classmates. No-one can know any of this, got it?”

Natsuo looked hurt. “What kind of guy do you take me for?” he asked plaintively. “I haven’t even told my classmates who I am, and I don’t plan to.”

Touya blinked in surprise. “Really?”

He sounded far younger, taking them both back years.

Natsuo sighed. “No. I registered under mom’s name, so that no-one would know. I wanted a clean break, so that this would be entirely me, and nothing to do with him. I’m lucky that I look more like mom, so it’s pretty easy. If people ask I tell them I have an older sister and a little brother, but nothing more than that.” 

If Touya was at all hurt by being excluded, he didn’t show it.

Natsuo frowned. “So yeah, I won’t tell anyone. Not even Fuyumi. I love her, but she can’t keep anything from him, so I wouldn’t tell her anyway.”

Touya nodded. “Thanks. Well, now if anyone asks you can tell them you have an older brother, too.”

Natsuo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll tell them you work nights, or something.”

Touya shot him a glare, to which his brother simply grinned. “What?”

Touya magnanimously chose to ignore him.

“Anyway. I trust you not to talk, so shut up now and let me explain. The plan is for you to bring Sho somewhere we can talk. Yes, I know what’s happened to him,” he said in response to Natsuo opening his mouth as if to talk. “Never mind how, I just do.”

Natsuo gave him a suspicious look, but kept silent.

“You can choose where to meet, if you want. Just make sure it’s somewhere no-one can see. I’m going to take him to Keigo’s apartment. He’ll be safe there. No-one knows where he lives except me, and if there’s one thing he’s good at its keeping secrets.”

“And then what?” Natsuo asked. “H-Keigo just said he knew someone who ‘wanted to take Endeavor down’, but he didn’t tell me anything else. You can’t just be planning to chill in an apartment. And how long for, anyway? If you know how Sho is right now, then you know he won’t stay like that for long.”

Touya shook his head. “Hopefully not that long,” he said. “All I want is to see how far he’s willing to go for his precious protégé. I want to see his face when he realises who I am, and then he’s going down.”

Natsuo frowned, his mouth twisting. “Yeah, about that. He’s convinced he’s trying to ‘be better’, and what’s worse is that Fuyu believes him. Sho isn’t convinced, and I’m not fooled for a second. But there’s a possibility that he wouldn’t go in guns blazing to get him back. Is that what you want?”

Touya raised an eyebrow. “He’s what?”

Natsuo rolled his eyes, sighing deeply. Leaning back, he said, “after you fought him, he wanted a whole ‘family dinner’ thing, to celebrate him not dying or something. He says he’s trying to change, and I got really mad at him. He said, and I quote, he wants to ‘make amends, going forwards’. He says he doesn’t expect us to forgive him, but he wants us to give him a chance to be a better person from now on.”

“Like hell,” Touya spat.

“Exactly,” Natsuo grinned sharply. “Bastard. He doesn’t have the right to ask anything of us. Sho said he’s not ready to forgive him for abusing mom, which to me says he’s not thinking of himself, which he damn well should, but he wants to see what kind of father he will be.”

Natsuo spat the word as though it hurt his mouth even to say.

“So yeah, anything you want to do to him, I’m in. He can bluster through promises all he wants, but hell will freeze over before I even think about believing him.”

Touya nodded. “That actually suits me. If he comes to us like a penitent, that will only make the hurt even sweeter. I’m pretty sure he was beginning to wonder who I was even before we fought, and now that I’ve given him that pretty little scar, I don’t think it will take much for the penny to finally drop.”

Natsuo glanced at him. “You weren’t actually the one to scar him, y’know. As much as I’d love it to have been, it was that freak mutant thing, not you. you were just cashing in on the glory, bro.”

Touya glared at him. “Who do you think was controlling it?” he asked.

Natsuo looked shocked. “Those things can be controlled?”

Touya shook his head. “Well, not exactly. Let’s just say I’m working with the man who creates them. Not that I wouldn’t want to see him as a corpse as soon as possible, but for the moment he’s serving our interests.”

“’Our’ being? Your little villain buddies? That…hand guy and stuff?”

Touya nodded. “They aren’t buddies. They aren’t even allies. Our interests align, that’s all.”

“Ohh, look at me, I’m Dabi, the lone wolf. I sit in the shadows ignoring everyone and brooding silently,” Natsuo teased.

Touya glared at him, unimpressed. “You haven’t met them. Kurogiri is about the only tolerable one.”

“I have no idea who that is, but fine. When do you want me to bring Sho?” he asked, getting back on track.

“Ideally, as soon as possible. I don’t want to risk it wearing off too soon. How soon could you manage to?”

Natsuo shrugged. “Tomorrow, day after. I came out here because I told Fuyu I had to go to the library. I can just say there was something on loan due back tomorrow, or whatever. It’s not like they’ll check. The difficulty will be being able to take Sho with me.”

Touya frowned. “He’s not even allowed out the house?” he said darkly.

Natsuo shook his head. “He wants to keep him hidden. Nothing has changed. You should have seen the fuss it took to have him allowed to see mom.”

Touya looked up at that. “You see her?”

Natsuo nodded. “She’s still in the hospital, and he isn’t allowed to see her at all, but me and Fuyu go at least every weekend. Sho has only been allowed to see her in the last few months, after he won his sports festival. He was on his way home for the weekend when he got attacked, and pretty much the first thing he said was asking for her. Fuyu was really against it, said it would upset mom too much to see him tiny again, but I insisted, and he allowed it, so we went. Now he seems happier.”

Touya had the closest thing to a smile Natsuo had seen for a long time, with laced with such sadness that it was almost painful to look at.

“Is she happy?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

Natsuo nodded. “She isn’t healed, and she probably won’t ever be, but she’s getting there. She’s proud of us.”

He looked at his brother, face tentative. “She asks about you, sometimes. When she thinks we can’t see, she takes out the photo we took and holds it, and she looks so sad. I think…I think she’d want to know you’re alive. I think she could understand who you are.”

Touya shook his head fiercely. “NO,” he barked.

Natsuo flinched, jumping back in his seat. His hands rose almost unconsciously, fear flickering in his eyes for the first time.

“I won’t do that to her,” Touya continued, voice barely a whisper. “If she’s happy, that’s good enough for me. I won’t burden her with knowing who I am. I couldn’t take her understanding. Our family has been split up enough, I can’t hurt her even more, not if she’s happy.”

Natsuo seemed to shake off his fear, glaring at his brother. “Happy? Sure, she’s healing, but she thinks her eldest son is dead! How is that better than knowing you’re alive, even if you're a villain? Sure, she wouldn’t like what you’ve done any more than I do, and Fuyu certainly wouldn’t either, but mom wouldn’t care. She loves you, Touya. She’s loved you since the day you were born. She loves all of us. It was his fault that she hurt Sho, and he hasn’t blamed her for it for one second. Would you really deny her the chance to see you, now that she gets to see the three of us? Do you not think for one moment that she wouldn’t accept you? Cuz if you don’t, maybe you really are Dabi, not my brother.”

Touya glared back, eyes blazing with anger and pain. “What good would it do? You said it yourself, she’s healing. You think seeing me like this would do anything but take her back and drag her back down into everything that made her break? You’re right, little brother, I have killed people. I’ve hurt, I’ve stolen, I’ve broken into more places than I can count. I’ve committed nearly every crime there is, and I’ll do it again. My greatest wish is to kill my own father, do you really think I deserve to be forgiven for that?”

“YES!” Natsuo yelled, making the few people there were around jerk their heads towards him. He cringed, trying to keep his voice down, and hissed,

“I’m not expecting you to waltz into the hospital and have a heart-to-heart. I was thinking more of writing her a letter or something. But if you expect me to keep quiet about this, then you agree to do something. Or I’m out.”

Touya’s glare intensified. “So you’d resort to blackmailing me? Guess you’re more like me than I gave you credit for,” he said disdainfuly.

“Yeah, I guess we’re all just the product of our shitty childhood,” Natsuo spat back. “Agree. Say you’ll contact her, or I walk away right now and you’ll never see Shouto unless it’s on the other side of a jail cell.”

Touya continued to glare at him, face wracked with thought.

“I can’t,” he said, eventually. “This isn’t a movie, Natsuo. You can’t ask me to decide something like that immediately.”

Natsuo let out an explosive breath, sitting back sharply. For a long moment, they sat in silence, before Natso inhaled deeply, dragging a hand across his face and composing himself.

“No, I guess not,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was mean of me. But please, say you’ll at least think about it. You don’t even have to decide anything. Just say you’ll consider it, please.”

Touya had rarely had any of his siblings ask him for anything.

For a moment, he tried to see it from his brother’s point of view.

They were scared. They all were. The fear their father had instilled in them ran too deep to ever truly go away, despite his talk of change and progress.

Touya took a deep breath. With a hand that trembled almost imperceptibly, he reached out and drained the last dregs of his coffee, his hands automatically warming it as he did so.

“I’ll think about it,” he promised. Natsuo sat back with a triumphant expression, releasing a breath he didn’t even realise he had been holding.

“Ok. Ok, that’s good,” he said, his voice shaky with relief.

“In that case, I’ll try and bring him out here tomorrow. This is probably the best spot to meet. The term officially ended on Friday, so if we meet early enough there probably won’t be anyone around. What kind of time would you like to meet?”

Touya shrugged. “Whenever you can, I guess. It’s not like I have any plans.”

Natsuo shot him a doubtful glance. “Not gonna curl up with birdbrain then?” he asked slyly.

Touya gave him a cool glance. “What would give you that idea?” he said, slightly chill.

Natsuo laughed. “He sounded pretty chill over the phone. I don’t know how you two even found each other, though I can kind of guess, but if you guys are together, I reckon I could support it.”

“Oh, how kind of you, little brother. I don’t need your blessing for anything,” Touya said, realising his mistake too late.

“Hah! So you are! Good, that makes two of us. I already got grilled by Fuyumi yesterday. I have a girlfriend, and that’s all I’m telling you,” Natsuo said, face flushing.

Touya’s mouth twitched as though wrestling with himself, before giving up and allowing a tiny smile to stretch across his face.

“In that case, I’m happy for you,” he said quietly.

“yeah?” Natsuo hid his own smile, burying his face in his scarf. “Thanks, big bro. Me too.”

He took out his phone. “I should get back soon. Not that I care what he thinks, but Fuyu will worry, and I don’t like leaving Sho. I promised I’d let him play My Hero One’s Justice on my switch when I got back. He’s really good at it. He loves playing as Izuku, even though he can’t remember him right now. You’d think its narcissistic, but apparently the kids all play it in their dorm. He even said their teacher lets them because he thinks it makes for a good training program.”

Touya smiled sadly. “He’ll love it at Keigo’s, then. He loves that game.”

The words held the fondness of a lover, and Natsuo couldn’t help grinning. He stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulders.

“I’m really glad to see you, big bro,” he said. “Say hi to Keigo for me.”

“I will do.”

“and Touya?

“Yes?” He sounded faintly annoyed.

“Don’t worry. Sho’s gonna be so happy to see you, I’m sure.”

With that, Natsuo walked off without another word, but Touya understood.

What he had said was true. Their family had been split up for far too long. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was time to start to make amends.

Chapter Text

Fuyumi gave Natsuo a gently disapproving stare when he got in, shaking the snow off his hat.

“Where were you? Why were you so long? Shouto was wondering when you’d be home,” she chided.

“I met a friend, we were chatting,” Natsuo answered. “I wasn’t gone that long. I did say I still need to keep up with work, y’know.”

“I know, but you came home to be with him, and he was worried,” she said in her top elder-sister voice.

“Well, I’m home now. Anyway, he wasn’t missing me, you just want to play my games, don’t you, Sho?” Natsuo grinned at the little figure standing tentatively at the bottom of the stairs in barely-concealed impatience.

Hearing his brother’s words, Shouto flushed and shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t want to,” he lied.

Natsuo tilted his head disbelievingly. “Yes, you do. I shouldn’t have been so long. Tell you what, we’ll make some tea and have some snacks and we can play it together, ok?”

“Ok!” Shouto beamed and ran into the kitchen, equally excited at the prospect of food and games.

“Wait, Shouto!” Fuyumi dashed after him with a harried expression.

Natsuo put his bag away in his room and changed out of his now-wet jeans, then rejoined his siblings in the living room.

Enji was there as well, reading something on his tablet with a frown. He looked up when Natsuo entered, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

“Did you get the books you needed?” he asked.

“What? Oh, yeah, I did. I told Fuyumi, I met a friend and we were chatting. Not that you would care,” he couldn’t help adding.

His heart pounded at having to lie to his father, but Enji didn’t seem to notice. His frown deepened at his son’s words.

“I do care about your studies, Natsuo. I’m glad you have friends in your college. Shouto is close with his classmates, I expect you would find some common ground with yours, too.”

Natsuo fought the urge to roll his eyes at being compared to his little brother, and only held back the words he wished to say for fear of saying something to dash the boy’s new-found happiness at the knowledge that he did indeed (would have?) have friends in the future.

Instead, he handed the games console over to him, sitting next to him on the couch and decidedly ignoring the man.

“Here you go, Sho. Sorry it took so long. You want me to set it up for you?”

Shouto shook his head. He glanced nervously at Enji, but when he received no rebuke he perked up and looked up at Natsuo with a shy smile.

“I want to play from the beginning,” he said.

“Ok. You just let me know if you need help beating someone,” Natsuo replied, emphasising the last word with a pointed look to Enji.

The man’s jaw clenched, hand tightening on his tablet, but he didn’t speak.

Natsuo decided not to push his luck any further, and took his laptop out.

“Tea’s ready,” Fuyumi called as she walked in carrying a tray filled with mugs and a plate of snacks. She set it down on the table and looked around, blinking.

“Oh, well, if we’re all working, then I have some class schedules to go over, too,” she said.

Soon the room was filled with silence, the only sound that of buttons being pressed as Shouto played and Natsuo worked on his essay.

Shouto looked up a few minutes later to see the adults all engrossed in their work. Lowering the console, he looked around nervously, hands clutching it tightly as though scared the bubble of calm was about to pop.

Natsuo glanced down at him and smiled, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

“Drink your tea before it gets cold,” he said gently.

Shouto did as he was told, still worried.

After a few long minutes of nothing happening, he sat back cautiously, drawing in to Natsuo’s side. His brother didn’t seem to notice, face set in concentration as he stared at his laptop screen, eyes running over the lines of his work.

Across the room, Fuyumi had a similar expression as she worked on a pile of papers, occasionally muttering almost inaudibly under her breath as she did so, tapping her pen against her mouth.

His eyes moved over to his father. Shouto hated being in Enji’s presence at the best of times, and for all that the man had been unbelievably calm for the past few days, Shouto was still waiting for it to end and the father he knew to emerge.

For all he knew, this was an act, someone watching their every move and forcing them all to act as a perfect family.

Briefly, he wondered if that meant his mother would be allowed to come home, to complete their family, but he dismissed the thought immediately.

There was someone still missing, after all. He really wished Touya could be home, too. He remembered his eldest brother leaving, and knew that he had had a really bad fight with Enji, worse than anything he had ever done before, but he really wished he would come back.

He missed his brother sneaking into his room at night to play with him. He wanted to show Touya the game he was playing, certain that he would like it too. But Touya hadn’t come home at all, and neither of his siblings would tell him where he was when he asked. From the looks on their faces, Shouto guessed that he wasn’t coming back, but he still couldn’t stop the childish hope that they were wrong.

Touya was strong. He could stand up to Enji more than Shouto could. He was a whole 8 years older than Shouto, which was twice his own age, so he could make everything better. Natsuo was nice and Fuyumi did her best, but Touya had always been Shouto’s favourite for having the strength to yell at their father and take their mother’s side in defending Shouto.

Maybe if he asked nicely, then they could go and see him, the way that he had seen his mother. He didn’t believe that Touya was gone. His room was still full of his things. Shouto had sneaked in to check, and apart from a heavy layer of dust over everything it seemed to be mostly intact.

His family had told him that he was really 16, not 4, but he wasn’t sure. Sure, everyone looked a bit older, but they were all older than him anyway. The only thing that was really different was the shiny, not-yet-healed scar across his father’s face. When Shouto tried to remember past the last few days, it was all muddled and foggy, like a dream that began to fade after waking up.

He looked down at the game Natsuo had given him. If the boy on the screen really was him all grown up, then why couldn’t he remember?

On the other hand, if it was him, then that meant he would be friends with the hero of the game, the boy with green hair and the determined smile.

Iz-u-ku Mi-do-ri-ya. Shouto sounded out the syllables in his mind, liking the sound of them. The other character, Bakugou, called him Deku, but made it sound like an insult, which made Shouto frown.

The game showed that Izuku had been trained by All Might. How could someone like that ever be useless?

Shouto’s eyes widened as he realised something.

If he really was grown-up, and went to UA, then that meant he knew All Might! He was actually being taught by All Might himself!

Suddenly Shouto wanted to be grown up again. If he was 16, then that meant he was even older than Touya, so surely he must be strong enough to stand up to his father himself? If he knew All Might, then maybe he would be able to do something. With someone like that on his side, as well as all the people in the game who were supposedly his classmates (and friends, he really couldn’t believe he could ever have that many friends) then there must be nothing he couldn’t do.

He felt a smile begin to stretch across his face, and fought to keep his composure. With a glance across to his father again, who remained oblivious to his son’s treacherous thoughts, he settled down against Natsuo again.

If it was really true, then this game was sort of a guide for the future, like a secret training manual. He was going to play as much as possible, and if the game was true, then one day, he was going to be a proper hero.

Natsuo was decidedly less certain. He kept his mind on his work, refusing to think about the doubts that were starting to cloud his mind.

What the hell had he agreed to? Sure, he wanted nothing more than for Shouto and Touya to see each other again. For all that Touya now went by Dabi, evil villain extraordinaire, Natsuo had no doubt that he would never hurt Shouto. He had defended him against their father’s wrath far too many times and suffered far too much to ever hurt him.

If anything, it would be parting that would hurt him the most, the same as with their mother. Shouto had been both calmed and subdued for the rest of the day after visiting her, and hadn’t asked when they would be able to go again, not wanting to push his luck.

No, that wasn’t what Natsuo was worried about. It was the thought of what came after.

He supposed Hawks (Keigo, what a small world it was, really) knew what he was doing. He hadn’t said anything, but from the very fact that he and Touya were so close Natsuo guessed that the older hero must be involved in some kind of secret, undercover work that not even (especially?) Enji didn’t know about.

Natsuo liked Hawks. He barely remembered the boy that Touya had been so close too, being only a child himself, but he could tell just from the man’s voice over the phone that they must rekindled their friendship, villain or not.

He didn’t ask for any of this. He had turned his back on the family, on heroes and villains and the limelight, wanting nothing to do with the family name. All he wanted was to get his degree, get a job, and live out his life in relative peace. Now he was in some kind of movie-set plot of revenge and payback, and he wished he could take it back.

Not that he wasn’t thrilled to know his brother was alive, but it was a lot to take in.

He tried to focus on his work, glaring at his screen as if the white judgement of the empty page would force the thoughts out of his head.

It worked somewhat, if only through brute effort. The hours dragged on, time slipping away as his fingers flew over the keyboard, immersing himself in nutrition and diet and realising how little any of it applied to him.

Though, really, did they expect it to. He was a college student after all.

He didn’t realise how much time had passed until he felt a hand tugging at his sleeve.

“Huh? What’s wrong, Sho?”

“I think it’s died,” his brother answered, looking crushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to play so long.”

“It’s fine. There’s a charger in my room, go and get it and you can charge if off my laptop,” Natsuo answered absently. “It should be in my bag. I showed you what it looks like, remember?”

Shouto nodded and slipped off the couch, casting a glance to Enji as he did so. The man looked up, but didn’t offer a comment, merely turning back to his work with a bland expression.

Shouto’s brows quirked together in confusion, but he didn’t dare question the leniency he had had all afternoon, and padded upstairs to Natsuo’s room.

He found the charger quickly and brought it down, holding it out to his brother with his head tilted to one side adorably.

Natsuo took it from him and plugged it in, waiting until his laptop began to siphon power off to it and the screen of the console to light up before handing it back to Shouto.

“Give it a few minutes before you start playing again,” he said.

Shouto nodded, climbing back onto the couch and curling into Natsuo’s side again. He looked at the screen curiously, entranced by the bright colours of the website Natsuo was currently on for research.

He looked up at Natsuo wonderingly. Sensing his brother’s gaze, Natsuo glanced down and smiled at him.

“This is boring, Sho, I doubt you’d be interested in it. Though, its probably more fun than lesson plans.”

“I heard that,” Fuyumi muttered. “You try teaching math to 30 children.”

“No thanks, sis.”

“Then shut up and leave me to it. Shouto, ignore your brother and have something to eat. You’ve been on that device for hours, you need to eat something.”

Natsuo snorted. “Device? You’re only 3 years older than me, sis. Don’t tell me you’re one of those teachers who can’t even use a computer. Can you make a video fullscreen?”

Fuyumi flushed. “Not everyone can be some kind of…of tech whiz!” she defended. “I’m perfectly competent with computers, thank you.”

“Uh-huh,” Natsuo replied, voice dripping with amused disbelief.

“That’s enough, both of you,” Enji’s voice barely rose above a normal volume, but it was enough to stop them both immediately.

“Sorry, dad,” Fuyumi mumbled.

“Natsuo, don’t tease your sister. Her skills lie in different areas to yours, and vice versa.”

Natsuo raised an eyebrow at that. “I’m sure,” he said flatly.

Enji set his tablet down with a quiet click that was somehow louder than if he had slammed it. He sighed deeply, sounding not angry, but weary.

“I don’t expect you to believe me, Natsuo, but I do recognise that you have chosen your own path, and if you’re truly happy in it, I’m not going to stop you. You’ve made your thoughts on my actions quite, and while I accept that, I will not have you doubt either your sister or yourself. You are my son whether you like it or not, and it would take a lot more than your current choices to change that.”

What, like being a villain?

Natsuo bit the words back. If his father knew what his sons were currently planning, he would likely never be allowed out of the house again, and Shouto would never get to meet his brother.

“Well, I think dad’s right. You’re good at stuff I’m not, yes, like computers, but I’m good at stuff you decidedly are not,” Fuyumi said. “Like, for instance, cooking. It’s about time for me to start getting dinner ready. Shouto, would you like to help me?”

“Uh, ok!” Shouto jumped off the couch and went over to his sister, who smiled at him. They left the room and went into the kitchen, Fuyumi’s cheerful voice interspersed with Shouto’s quiet answers, fading into background noise.

Dinner was remarkably civil, with Fuyumi asking Natsuo about his studies in a wordless apology. Shouto’s eyes darted between his siblings like he was watching a tennis match, face wide with admiration.

“I want to be big again,” he said quietly. “Do you think I’ll be like you when I’m grown up, too?”

“Oh, no, sweetie, you’ll be much better than us,” Fuyumi said. “Right, dad?”

Shouto glanced over to Enji nervously, shoulders hunching into himself and eyes dropping down to his bowl. He set his chopsticks down carefully, hands twisting together in his lap as he waited for the answer.

“I thought I made it clear that I’m not comparing you to each other,” he answered. “Yes, it goes without saying that Shouto is undoubtedly the best of my interns, but I am proud of all three of you.”

Shouto’s eyes darted up to his father again, hands pulling at the sleeves of his jumper before beginning to eat again.

He desperately wanted to know more about what he was supposedly like in the future, but at the same time, he could barely believe it. The game showed him as someone who was confident, who had friends, and who even smiled.

That wasn’t him. He had never even gone to school, let alone met and spent time with children his own age. The thought that he could, would, one day have an entire class of people to talk to, or even several, was unimaginable.

Working with his father, even more so. He had said ‘students’, so there must be others. Who else would his father accept to train? How could he teach other people when all his attention went on Shouto?

Didn’t they know what his training was like? Were they strong enough to cope with it? Or maybe he got his own normal training at home, and whatever they did in public was scaled down, so as not to draw too much attention.

Shouto couldn’t imagine what other parents would think if their children came home with broken bones and their bodies covered in bruises and burns and angry, red skin, but even as sheltered as he was, he knew it wasn’t normal. He didn’t think his father would keep being a top hero if that happened.

But, there was no mention of it in the game, not yet at least, so clearly Shouto never told anyone.

He remained quiet through the rest of dinner, occasionally stealing glances at Enji, who met his eyes, frowning.

Shouto hurriedly looked down again, and kept his gaze firmly on his bowl until he was finished.

Later, he lay in bed, hearing the sounds of his siblings talking and the TV’s quiet buzz.

He heard the sound of his door opening, and shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He lay still as he heard his father’s heavy footsteps get closer to his futon, then the sound of the man crouching down beside him.

He kept as still as possible, trying to keep his breathing soft.

He felt his father’s hand reaching out for him, and despite trying to feign sleep, he couldn’t help flinching.

Enji withdrew, and Shouto’s eyes snapped open in confusion.

“So you are awake,” he said.

Shouto simply stared up at him, not daring to speak.

Enji sat back on his heels, sighing deeply.

“This is so difficult,” he murmured. “Your mother would know what to do.”

If anything, that only made Shouto more confused. It was his father that had sent his mother away, so why did he sound so sad? What would she know what to do?

His face must have shown his feelings even in the near-dark of the room, as Enji slowly leaned forwards, hand outstretched as if Shouto was a frightened animal.

He knelt down, studying Shouto’s face as if searching for something.

Shouto suddenly realised what was different about his father.

The flames that usually surrounded his face were nowhere to be seen. Instead of a beard of fire, there was smooth skin, marred on one side by the healing skin of his scar.

Shouto felt a strange surge of courage, and slowly moved a hand out of his futon, reaching up with a small hand.

Enji kept carefully still as his son’s probing fingers touched his face, even lowering himself to allow him better access.

“Did it hurt?” he asked in a tiny voice. "Were you scared?"

Enji remembered the pain, the fierce slash and the feel of burning blood sliding down his face and obscuring his vision. More than that, though, had been the fear. All-encompassing fear of the horrendous, malformed creature, and the unknown genius capable of creating such twisted mockeries of life.

“Yes,” he admitted.

Shouto frowned, his lips twisting. His other hand reached up to his own face, hand covering his eye as the other stared at his father.

Enji’s mouth quirked in the barest hint of a sad smile.

“Now we match,” he murmured.

Slowly, he reached forward and laid his hand over Shouto’s, covering him. With the other, he leaned down and lifted Shouto out of his covers, drawing him towards himself.

Shouto’s face landed against his father’s broad chest, hearing the thump of his heart and feeling the ever-present heat of his body.

He couldn’t move. His arm was pressed painfully against his father’s face, but he didn’t dare move. His own heart began to race, too confused to form coherent thoughts.

He felt Enji move until his hair was being stirred by the man’s breath, and his arm slipped slowly from his grip, falling around his neck in a strange almost-embrace.

“I’m sorry, Shouto.”

He barely heard the words murmured into his hair. His father’s arms tightened around him, holding him securely as a normal parent would.

Like his mother did.

He really didn’t understand. He blinked rapidly, feeling tears welling up and sliding down his cheeks as the ever-growing confusion was suddenly too much for his body to take.

The past few days had been nothing but confusing and terrifying. He couldn’t remember anything of what he had been told, and despite his family’s older appearances and the pictures that Natsuo had shown him, he still couldn’t believe that it was all true.

Even the game, as amazing as it was, showed a boy that wasn’t him. He wasn’t sixteen, he was four and he didn’t understand and it was scary.

Held in his father’s embrace, he couldn’t take it any more, and burst into tears, exactly as he had with his mother.

If Enji was surprised, he didn’t show it, merely holding his son as he let out all the emotions his tiny body couldn’t contain.

“I’m scared,” Shouto hiccupped. “I don’t understand.”

“I know,” Enji murmured. He didn’t offer any reassurance, not knowing what else to say.

He felt his son’s arms pushing at him, and loosened his grip enough for the boy to stare up at him with tear-stained eyes, the skin around them already reddening.

The two-tone eyes sought out his own, little hands clenching on his shirt.

“Am I really big?” he asked in a tiny voice.

Enji sighed.

Deciding the truth was best, he answered, “Yes. I know its hard to understand, and you probably don’t believe us, but you are. You’ve been playing that game your brother gave you. That’s all true.”

All of it, including his own less-than-favourable depiction. Through his son’s actions, his faults as a parent were slowly coming to light, and there could be no hiding it any longer. All he could do was accept it, and attempt to move forward, leaving behind the mistakes of the past.

Shouto let his gaze fall, hands still clenching the fabric of Enji’s shirt, his body heat drying the fabric and leaving stiff salt behind.

“Do I...am I good enough, to work with you? Nee-san says I’m working with you, so does that mean I’m good enough? You’re not mad at me?”

Enji stiffened, pulling him closer again.

“No, I’m not angry with you. You’re doing brilliantly, son. You make me proud.”

He drew back again, staring at Shouto intensely.

“I know you don’t remember it now, but I’m trying to be a better father to you, Shouto. To all of you. Ever since you started at UA, you’ve tried to make something better of yourself, and you’ve come a long way. As you are now, you have nothing but bad memories of me, and that’s my fault. This must all be very confusing to you now, and I don’t blame you for it. Just know that I’m doing my best to change. Can you give me a chance to do that?”

Shouto’s face twisted up in thought. His mouth flattened in obvious disbelief, and his eyes darted across his father’s face as if searching for the truth of his words.

Something in Enji’s expression must have shown, as he gave a tiny nod.

“Does that mean we won’t have training?” he asked in a barely audible voice, flinching as soon as the words were out of his mouth, expecting a refusal immediately.

“No, no training,” Enji answered, using all of his control to keep his voice as soft as possible. “Only if you choose to. But I will stop if I see you’re going too far, do you understand? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Shouto clearly didn’t believe that, but he nodded anyway. He blinked slowly, suddenly feeling the tiredness from crying and his jumbled emotions catching up with him and weighing him down.

Despite fighting it, his body began to relax, slumping forward into Enji’s chest and his arms falling by his sides.

Enji lay him back down carefully, stepping away for a minute and returning with a damp cloth, which he wiped his son’s face and hands with before laying aside.

Shouto was already on the edge of sleep, utterly worn out by the display of emotion, but his eyes fluttered as he felt his father pull the covers back over him and smooth his hair away from his forehead.

“Go to sleep, Shouto,” he said. “You’re safe now, I promise.”

Shouto felt himself relaxing, mind already blurring as his brain gave up on trying to make sense of it all.

“Good night, daddy,” he mumbled, too tired to think about anything further.

“Good night, Shouto. Sleep well.”

He heard Enji’s voice more as rumble of sound than actual words, and was asleep by the time the door closed softly, leaving only a small ray of light showing from the edge in case he woke up in the night.

His last thought, buried somewhere in his subconscious, was that there was still someone missing.

If only he could see his big brother.

Chapter Text

Across the city, Keigo was having similar indecisions. He paced back and forth across the tiny space of his apartment, worrying his lip.

“Calm down, birdie, you’re gonna wear a hole in the carpet.”

He whirled round to see Touya entering through the window again. How had he even climbed up?

“You have a fire escape, you know,” he answered. “Come on, birdbrain, give me some credit. Anyway, it’s fine,” he swung himself inside, shaking the snow out of his hair, where it melted into the carpet, to Keigo’s annoyance.

Keigo raised an eyebrow. “Had a good heart-to-heart with your brother, then?”

Touya shrugged out of his coat, using his hands to dry it before folding it up and leaving it on the couch, which he flung himself into.

“It was weird, seeing him again. He looks like our mom,” he commented casually, and only years of almost-forgotten closeness let Keigo hear the waver in his voice. “He’s at college, all grown up. He’s gonna defy the old man. My little brother, conspiring against our father. Ha.”

He leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes.

Keigo sat down next to him, pushing the remnants of the pizza next to him, and Touya took a slice absently.  They sat in silence for a long time, before Keigo opened his mouth to speak.

“I don’t know when,” Touya said. “He just said he’ll try tomorrow or the day after. It depends. He’ll let us know when he’s leaving.”

He turned to face Keigo suddenly. “Do you have any idea how to look after a kid?” he asked, almost fiercely.

Keigo shook his head. “Dude, how would I? I grew up in a secret facility. Child-rearing and babysitting didn’t exactly fit into the schedule. He’s your brother, I’m leaving all of that to you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just using my apartment as a free hideout. Looking after the kid isn’t my responsibility.”

Touya glared at him. “Then you’re gonna need to go shopping, and now.”

“Why me?” Keigo moaned.

“Because I can’t rock up to a mall without setting off every alarm known to man,” Touya answered. “Get it delivered if you want, I don’t care. Just get it.”

Keigo sighed deeply. “Fine. This better be worth it.”

“You’re loaded, what else do you have to spend it all on?” Touya shot back.

“More pizza,” Keigo said snarkily, but he got his laptop out all the same.

It was a tense night for everyone. Natsuo somehow managed to get through dinner without being too on edge, and passed off Fuyumi’s worry with a vague excuse of being worried about his grades, to which she fussed and sent him to bathe and go to sleep early, barely after Shouto.

“You’ve stared at your screen long enough, and you won’t write it well if you’re tired. Go to bed and get some sleep, and you can keep working on it tomorrow,” she ordered.

“Yes, mom,” he said, rolling his eyes. He did as she said anyway, even though the hot water of the bath did little to calm the tension in his muscles.

After he had finished in the bath, he lay on his bed in his room, staring at the ceiling.

He remembered having asked for a bed to replace his futon, having got used to the western style and furniture of his dorms, and the look of resigned annoyance his father had given him.

He had bought it, though. Natsuo didn’t know what to think about that. His mind turned over what seemed like every conversation he had ever had with his father.

He realised now that there didn’t seem to be very many of them, after all. It was lonely being the middle child, even if that invisibility allowed him a relatively higher degree of freedom than his siblings.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a tiny knock on his door, hesitant and barely audible.

Natsuo got off the bed and slid his door open, revealing Shouto standing there tentatively, looking almost furtive.

“You ok, buddy?” he asked, kneeling down to his little brother. “You know you can just come in, you don’t have to knock.”

Shouto didn’t reply. Natsuo stood up, sighing internally, and ushered his brother in. “What’s wrong, Sho? Did you have a nightmare?”

The boy shook his head, looking up at him with trusting eyes. “I just…feel funny,” he said.

Natsuo frowned, worrying. Was the quirk beginning to wear off? It had only been a few days, so it should last until at least the end of the week. It had to. The whole plan relied on it.

“Funny how? Does anything hurt? Do you feel sick?”

Shouto shook his head again. “No, I’m ok. I just…” he trailed off. He looked up at Natsuo with a face full of confusion.

“I don’t understand what’s happening. Why is dad being nice? Did something happen? Am I going to get sent away like mommy?”

Natsuo felt a sudden surge of conviction in the plan after all.

Kneeling down, he drew Shouto into a hug, rubbing his back comfortingly. He stood up with him in his arms, letting out a breath in emphasis.

“Oof, you’re heavy, Sho. Don’t expect me to make a habit of this,” he said, carrying him over to the bed and dropping him lightly.

Shouto giggled as he hit the bed, and Natsuo grinned as he knelt down to him.

His face sobered up, and he took Shouto’s tiny hands in his.

“No-one’s sending you away, Sho,” he said. “I wish I could tell you what that guy is doing, but I don’t understand it either. He wants to be a better dad to us, and its up to you whether you want to believe that or not. Last week, when you were big, you said you would give him a chance. I wont lie to you, I’m not going to. I don’t believe him one bit, but Fuyu and mom do, so you get to decide what you think.”

Shouto frowned, hands clenching in Natsuo’s. He bit his lip, thinking.

“He helped me make the card for mommy, and he taught me how to make the crane, too,” he began slowly. “And he hasn’t made me do any training, either. And he has a scar too, and when I asked if it hurt he said yes.”

He met Natsuo’s eyes, confusion warring with hope in his two-tone gaze.

“He said he was sorry for hurting me,” he said in a childishly serious voice. “And he didn’t sound like he was lying. I know what he sounds like when he lies, and he didn’t.”

His hands tightened, voice wavering. “He hugged me and he cried. He’s never hugged me like that before. I’m really really scared and I don’t know what to do, but he’s being nice, and I like it being nice. He let us go see mommy and he didn’t get mad when you let me eat ramen or when nee-chan gave me a t-shirt with All Might on.”

He looked up again, eyes filling with tears.

“I’m sorry, nii-san, but I like daddy like this. Is it wrong to like it being like this? I want daddy to keep being nice. I don’t want him to be scary again. He let me play your game even though he’s not nice in it, and I’m big and strong and I beat all the bad guys with Izuku and Bakagou.”

Natsuo fought back a smile at the mispronunciation, but didn’t correct him. Shouto stared up at him, face set in sincerity.

“I don’t remember being big, but if this is what it makes daddy be like, then maybe it was good that I got hit by a bad quirk,” he said. “I don’t want things to be like before. I want things to be good, and I like it like this. So if you said I said I would try and believe in daddy when I’m big, then I think I can do it now, too.”

He bit his lip again, looking away shyly, then back, determined.

“I think…you should try to believe in daddy, too, Natsu-nii.”

Natsuo was genuinely floored. He knew that children could and did see the world more optimistically than adults, but he didn’t expect Shouto to be this naïve.

He tried to put himself in his brother’s shoes. For Shouto, in his mind now only 4 years old, he knew nothing of the last twelve years. He had seen more pain and fear in his four short years of life than many people saw in a lifetime, and yet with just a few days of kindness he was willing to believe in a brighter future, one that he trusted he already believed in.

It was too trusting, too terrifyingly innocent, and yet his face was so endearingly hopeful that Natsuo couldn’t deny him.

“Ok, Sho. I’ll try.”

The words hurt more than he could say, but the blinding smile that spread across Shouto’s face was worth it.

Somehow, it was true. It wasn’t that Natsuo didn’t believe Enji was sincere. He didn’t doubt that he wanted to be better. He just didn’t believe it would happen. People promised to change all the time. They just very rarely managed to keep it up. Sooner or later, something would happen and they would revert back to being exactly the same as before, without so much as an apology. Then would come tears and promises and yet another insistence that this time would be different, again and again in an endless, utterly wearing repetition.

So yes, Natsuo could try and believe. He just wouldn’t hold out any hope.

Shouto was, luckily, oblivious to his brother’s mental warring, and threw himself forward to wrap his arms around Natsuo as much as he could reach.

He sighed deeply, snuggling into Natsuo’s chest, and mumbled something.

“What? You say something, Sho?”

Shouto shook his head, sitting back and playing with his hands.

“Come on, buddy, tell me. I won’t get mad, ever. What do you want?” Natsuo asked, knowing anyway but wanting to hear the boy say it. It would make everything so much easier.

“I want to see Touya-nii,” he said quietly. Looking up at Natsuo hopefully, he continued, “We saw mommy, so now we just have to see Touya-nii. I know he left, but if we tell him that daddy is sorry and he isn’t mad then we can ask him to come home. His room is all the same, I looked and except its all dusty its fine, so he can come home and we can clean it all up and then mommy can come home and everything will be ok.”

He sounded so determined, so certain that all it took was an ardent apology and all wounds would be healed over.

If only the world did work like that, just like a fairytale. Unfortunately, heroes though they were, there was no quirk that could create a happy ending. Nothing but hard work and time, which they were running out of.

“You want to see Touya.”

Shouto nodded fiercely. “I really miss him. I want to see him, even if he doesn’t want to come home.”

“Even if he looks different?” Natsuo asked, testing the water.

Shouto’s expression turned to confusion. “Different how? He fought with daddy, so did he get a scar like me?”

Natsuo let out a nervous breath. “Yeah, something like that. Ok, you have to listen to me carefully, alright?”

Shouto drew into himself, scared, but nodded. “Ok.”

“Ok. You know that you’re big, right?”

Shouto nodded. “So…Touya-nii is big, too.”

Natsuo waited, letting Shouto think it through. After a few moments, he seemed to reached a conclusion, his brows drawn together and warping his childish face into a serious expression.

“There’s a man in your game with eyes like daddy,” he began cautiously. “He’s got blue flames and scars all over his face, just like us." He paused, and Natsuo held his breath, not daring to interrupt.  "Daddy said that Touya-nii’s flames are even hotter than his," Shouto continued. "Daddy’s flames can go blue. I saw it once when he got really mad with him. They were fighting, and Touya-nii’s flames went blue.”

His face lifted up to Natsuo, eyes wide, but dry.

“The man in the game is bad. He burns things and hurts people. He's got different hair and he's older, but he looks kind of like daddy. Touya-nii looked like daddy, too, and you just said he looks different now. So...Touya-nii is the bad man in your game. He said his name is Dabi. But it's Touya-nii, right?"

Natsuo’s lack of answer was good enough for Shouto. He frowned, dropping his head to stare at his clenched fists.

“So, when Touya-nii and daddy fought, and he left, he didn’t ever come back. Now he’s a villain because of what daddy did to him.”

He looked up at Natsuo, mouth twitching.

“Has he killed people?” he asked seriously.

Natsuo shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me, but possibly. Probably.”

Shouto absorbed this in silence. He seemed to think it over for a long time, then finally looked up at Natsuo again.

“Mommy hurt me because I looked like daddy, and she said that daddy was hurting me too much,” he said. “But he hurt Touya-nii more, because he was bigger and he fought back more. Killing people is really bad, but then daddy nearly killed him, and now he says he’s sorry. But if Touya-nii is a villain now, then he doesn’t know daddy is sorry, and maybe Touya-nii is sorry too. We have to make him come home, so they can both say they're sorry.”

He frowned again. “And then we’ll make Touya-nii stop being a villain, and not to kill any more people. Daddy fights people, but only villains, and if Touya-nii is a villain then they’ll fight again, and that would hurt even more people than just them because in the game he hurt my friends.”

He gasped suddenly. “Wait, he tried to hurt me!” he said.

He said it with such childish outrage that Natsuo had to bite back a laugh.

“That’s not fair,” Shouto said. “I wish I could remember being big.”

His eyes went wide again. “Wait, you said he didn’t tell you if he’s killed people. That means you know where he is. When did you see him? Can I see him? Please? I know daddy will be mad, but I miss him so much even if I’m really angry at him now, but I’ll forgive him if he promises to be good like daddy is trying to, and if he says he’s sorry for trying to take me away to his evil friends.”

Natsuo couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “He did kidnap one of your classmates,” he said lightly.

Shouto waved a hand at him. “But he’s mean, so it was fine. And me and Izuku rescued him, anyway.”

His face twisted in disgust. “Wait, does that mean that those freaky brain lizards are real?” he said with horror.

Natsuo nodded. “Yes. That was how dad got his scar. He fought one. And…then he met Dabi. Touya. But they didn't fight 

Shouto looked up at him quickly, then away. “Oh.”

He thought for a moment, the light-hearted moment gone.

“Does daddy know he’s Touya-nii?” he asked quietly.

Natsuo shook his head. “No. Only we know. and Touya’s friend, Keigo. Do you remember him at all?”

Shouto considered it, then shook his head. “I don’t…think so?”

Natsuo sighed. “I don’t expect you to. He calls himself Hawks now. He’s a hero who works with dad, but he’s working with Touya undercover for something, I don’t know what.”

Shouto’s eyes lit up. “So he’s a spy?”

Natsuo laughed. “Yeah, kind of.”

Shouto’s face turned thoughtful. “If he’s a hero, and Touya-nii’s friend from before, then he’s probably already mad at Touya-nii for being a villain. Is he spying for daddy to get Touya to be good again?”

Natsuo wished he could answer that, but he neither knew nor particularly wished to, though he didn’t tell Shouto that.

“Possibly,” he deflected vaguely, but it seemed enough to satisfy the boy.

“So when can we go see him? If he’s bad now then he really can’t come home yet, so we’ll have to go see him, just like mommy.”

He frowned, looking at Natsuo accusingly. “Wait. If he’s been a villain since he left home, then how do you know who he is? He doesn’t call himself Touya anymore. Now he’s called Dabi.”

Finally, to the point. Natsuo sighed.

“I got a message from Keigo the day before yesterday, saying that he wanted to talk to me,” he explained. “We spoke over the phone, and then he told me to go and meet someone, somewhere I could choose. That person was Dabi. Touya.”

He took hold of Shouto’s shoulders, making his brother face him.

“He knows what’s happened to you, and he wants to see you,” he said. “I’m going to meet him again tomorrow, and you can come with me. But you can’t tell Fuyu, and certainly not dad. You don’t breathe a word to them, alright?”

Shouto nodded, scared. “Because daddy would get mad if I leave the house and anyone sees me,” he said.

“Exactly. So me and you are gonna sneak out, ok? And you’re gonna stay with Touya and Keigo for a few days.”

Shouto’s face twisted, uncertain. “But daddy would be really mad, and nee-san would worry,” he argued.

“That’s the point,” Natsuo said. His voice dropped, harsher than Shouto had ever heard.

“Shouto, Touya hates dad. You want to believe that he’s changing, that’s fine, but remember the day that he left. He was hurt real bad, and that kind of pain doesn’t go away. Dad made him become a villain, and Touya, Dabi, doesn’t want to forgive him. Do you understand me? He’s scared for you. As far as he knows, you’re in danger here, and he wants to protect you.”

Shouto frowned in childish anger. “But I’m not. Daddy’s being nice and he promised he won’t hurt me ever again. Touya-nii is the bad one now for being a villain. Daddy hurt me too and I’m a hero now when I’m big, so he shouldn’t be a villain. I told you, daddy will tell Touya-nii he’s sorry and then Touya-nii will have to stop being a villain. Or…or he’ll get locked up like all the other bad guys, or put in a hospital like mommy.”

He gasped. “What if mommy told him to stop being a villain? Mommy can be scary too when she’s mad, so if she told him to be good then he would.”

He said it so confidently that Natsuo simply let him go, smiling sadly.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” he said. “Do you promise not to say a word?”

Shouto nodded fiercely. “Pinky swear,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Pinky swear,” Natsuo replied, following the motions with Shouto as they sealed the promise.

 “Now, go to bed or I won’t take you at all.”

Shouto obediently hopped down from the bed, padding over to the door.
“I’ll make Touya-nii come home, you’ll see,” he said confidently. “Then mommy will come home too, and we’ll all be happy again.”

He slid open the door and left, leaving Natsuo in dark silence again.

He sighed deeply, getting into bed and pulling the covers over himself.

If only everything could be that simple.

Lying awake would get him nowhere. He didn’t expect sleep to find him, but somehow he found himself drifting off anyway.

Tomorrow was, as they say, another day, and he would need all the sleep he could get if he was to get through it.

Chapter Text

In the end, it was suspiciously easy. After a night of predictably restless sleep, Natsuo woke up to a quiet house.

Padding along to the kitchen, he saw Fuyumi sitting at the table, sipping a cup of tea with a stack of papers in front of her. She looked up as he walked in, her expression softening.

“You didn’t get much sleep after all, huh? Finals are brutal.”

Natsuo just nodded.

Fuyumi gestured towards the microwave vaguely, taking her glasses off and rubbing her nose. “Breakfasts in there, just heat it up.”

He did as she instructed, slumping next to the counter to rest his head on his arms while he watched the bowl spin slowly until it was finished, beeping insistently until he took it out.

“Where’s Sho? He asked around a mouthful.

“In his room,” Fuyumi replied absently. “I think he was waiting for you to get up, he won’t say but I know he wants to play that game again. I told him he’d have to wait, because you were tired.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Fuyumi glanced up at him, frowning. “Is it that bad?” she asked, worried. “You don’t normally get this worked up about essays.”

Natsuo felt a flash of panic. Trying to keep his voice stable, he answered, “No, it’s just…a bad time, I guess. And I still don’t trust dad anyway. Its just-“

“-Getting to you now,” Fuyumi finished for him, nodding. “I get it.”

She bit her lip, thinking. “If only we could take Shou out somewhere,” she said. “I know dad wouldn’t let us, but he’ll get bored cooped up here with all of us adults working, and we can’t take him over to UA either. If we could just take him to a park or something.”

She looked at him hopefully, sending the panic surging through him again.

There was no way the universe could align like this. Something was about to go terribly wrong, he could feel it.

On the other hand, what were the chances?

Throwing caution to the wind, he said, “Well, I have to go pick up a book from the library. I could take him with me. I’m meeting a friend there, so he can watch him for a minute while I go in, then we could swing by a park on the way back.”

Fuyumi’s eyes lit up, before her face fell in thought. “Are you sure? Don’t you have to finish  your essay?”

Natsuo shook his head. “It’s not urgent enough that I can’t take an hour off to take my little brother to a park.”

Fuyumi considered it, biting her lip. “What kind of friend are you meeting?” she asked. “Do they know who you are? What if they recognised Shouto?”

Natsuo tried to stem the flow of questions calmly. “Someone I’ve known for years. We went to the same school, he’s one of the few people who knows who I am, and even if he did recognise Sho I know he can be trusted to keep a secret. Really, he’ll be 100% safe.”

Fuyumi took a deep breath. “Ok. That…that’s good. But what if someone else did?”

“Sis, it’s snowing. Stick a hat on Sho and no-one will be able to see his hair. Sho isn’t great at playing with other kids so he probably won’t want to do more than swing for a bit or go on a slide anyway. It’s new enough for him to even go out that he wouldn’t try and do anything more anyway.”

He couldn’t help a sour note creeping in, feeling his face twist into a frown as he spoke.

Fuyumi sighed. “I know. Well, dad’s in his office and he said he’ll be working all morning, so you’re fine. If he asks I’ll tell him the truth, but I don’t think he’ll be too mad. He really is trying, and something small like this shouldn’t be a problem. Just try not to be more than an hour or so, ok?”

“Ok. I’ll go tell Sho, then,” Natsuo said.

“Mmm.”

Fuyumi was already bent over her papers again, face set in concentration. Natsuo rinsed his bowl, then headed to Shouto’s room.

“Sho? I’m coming in.”

He opened the door to see Shouto holding a book, apparently engrossed in reading. Glancing at the cover, Natsuo saw that it was one of his UA textbooks.

From the look of wonder on the boy’s face, he was obviously thrilled at seeing the heroes names across the pages, imagining what it must be like to be taught by them.

“Hey, buddy. You catching up with your homework?” Natsuo asked, smiling.

“Natsu-nii!”

Shouto jumped up, throwing his arms around his brother. “Are you awake now? Can I play your game again? I’ll be really quiet, I promise! Fuyu-nee is busy and daddy is working so I’ll be really quiet and I won’t bother any of you, I promise!”

“Ok, Sho, calm down,” Natsuo knelt down in front of him, face serious.

“What about something better than that?” he asked.

Shouto’s eyes lit up.

“You mean…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “Go see Touya-nii?”

Natsuo nodded. “Yep. But we have to pretend we’re going to the park, ok?”

Shouto nodded, childish face utterly serious. “Ok.”

“Ok. Put your jacket on, then we’ll go.”

Shouto nodded again, running to the door before stopping suddenly. He took a deep breath, then opened it, walking out at a much more sedate pace to the genkan.

Natsuo helped him put his jacket and boots on, then placed a hat over his head. Shouto pouted at him, obviously not wanting to wear it, but when Natsuo told him ‘its to hide your hair, so no-one sees you’, his eyes widened in understanding, and he reached up to grip the sides of the hat and pulled it down, stretching the wool almost over his mismatched eyes.

Natsuo laughed and pulled it up again. “Not quite that far, Sho,” he said, smiling.

“Ok, I’m off,” he called to Fuyumi.

“Come back safe,” she replied absently from where she had decamped to the lounge.

“You ready?” Natsuo looked down to Shouto.

“mm-hmm!” the boy replied.

They set off into the softly-falling snow, hearts pounding in anticipation.

As they walked, Natsuo took out his phone.

“Birdie? Yeah, it’s me. We’re on our way. Yeah, I know only Touya calls you that. What, I’m not allowed to mess with you? As the second eldest, I think I oughtta be the one to give you the shovel talk, cuz then you’ll get it from Fuyu, and she won’t pull her punches.”

He fell silent as he listened to whatever Hawks was saying.

Shouto looked up at him as they walked. Natsuo had always been taller than him, but now the height of his rewound age made that difference seem almost unreachable.

It had been twelve years since he saw his eldest brother. What would that height look like now? According to the game, he had already seen Touya, already fought him.

Touya now wore the mantle of a villain. Shouto was going to become a hero.

Was there too much difference between them, after all?

It seemed like a lot more than age separated them. That gulf seemed to stretch out endlessly, the weight of their family name and the paths it had taken on winding out endlessly behind them.

Shouto didn’t remember any of that. But he did remember his brother. The memories were still fresh to him.

He suddenly felt a rush of determination in his small body.

Shouto Todoroki was many things. A student at UA. A member of class 1-A. A hero in training. The son of the number one hero, flame hero Endeavor. An intern at his father’s agency.

But right now, he wasn’t any of those things.

Right now, he was Shouto. He was four years old, and he wanted his brother.

“Do you want to speak to him?”

Shouto looked up to see Natsuo holding the phone out, a querying look on his face.

He shook his head fiercely. He wanted to see Touya, not speak to him over a phone.

“No, he’s shaking his head.” A pause. “Of course he wants to talk you, you jackass! But maybe he wants to do it, y’know, face to face, not over a phone! We’re nearly there anyway, so shut up and wait. We’ll be like literally five minutes. Don’t freeze before we get there.”

He hung up the call, pocketing the phone and looking down at Shouto with a smile.

“You ready, Sho?”

Shouto nodded.

He bit his lip, trying to control the smile that wanted to spread across his face.

He reached up and tugged at Natsuo’s arm, drawing closer to him.

In perfect sibling understanding, Natsuo pulled his glove off to let Shouto grip his hand tightly.

They walked the last few blocks in silence, the snow muffling their footsteps and filling the prints as they drew ever closer.

“Breathe, Sho,” Natsuo instructed as they rounded the corner to the library.

Shouto hadn’t even realised he was holding his breath. He began to panic, suddenly realising that there was no going back.

“Ok, calm down.”

Natsuo looked around, and, seeing the area nearly deserted, swung Shouto up into his arms, giving an inward thanks to all the hours he spent in the gym as he did so.

He had only been half-kidding earlier. Shouto was far lighter than most children, but with his snow-covered jacket it was still a heavy weight.

Shouto started to struggle instinctively before relaxing, though still tense.

His hands latched on to the thick fur of Natsuo’s jacket collar, tiny fingers carding through the material worriedly.

“Natsu-nii?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Touya-nii will be happy to see me, won’t he?”

Natsuo’s arms tightened around him. “Of course he will. He asked to see you, didn’t he?”

He knew Shouto still wasn’t convinced.

Stopping his pace, he set Shouto down again, kneeling down to his level uncaring of the snow that soaked the knees of his jeans as he did so.

“Look at me, Shouto,” he said.

Hearing his brother use his full name, Shouto did so, meeting his eyes.

“Remember this, Sho. Whatever happened, all the shit we went through, Touya was never mad at you. Ok? It was never you. Never. He wants to see you. But if you don’t want to see him, we can turn around and go back home right now and he’ll just have to deal with it. So do you wanna go home?”

Shouto shook his head fiercely. “No! I wanna see him!”

“Ok. Come on, then.” He stood off, brushing the snow from his jeans and taking Shouto’s cold hand again.

The boy took a deep breath, then started walking.

His hand tightened around Natsuo’s with every step, but he didn’t stop walking.

Natsuo led him through the campus, ignoring the occasional glance he got from passing students, no doubt wondering who Shouto was, but all minding their own business.

And there he was. Standing by the tree with his hood pulled over his face, hands cupped around the cigarette he was trying to light. Looking like any other student waiting on a friend.

Shouto stopped dead, hand going still in Natsuo’s.

Natsuo let him go, placing both hands on his shoulders instead.

Shouto looked up at him, a war of emotions passing across his face.

“Go on, Sho,” he said gently.

Shouto looked down again, staring at his feet for a long time.

Natsuo felt his phone buzz in his pocket, ignoring it. He felt Shouto leaning back, pressing himself into his legs like he wanted to fade away.

His phone buzzed insistently in his pocket.

Carefully, he lifted his hands from Shouto’s shoulders, drawing his phone out and unlocking it.

 What the hell are you waiting for?

Frowing, Natsuo typed back.

It’s a hell of a lot for him to take in, dumbass, he replied. Give him a minute, he’ll move when he’s ready.

He didn’t need to look over to know that Touya was rolling his eyes, but he could practically feel his brother’s impatient glare boring into him.

Tough. This was their little brother. Touya had waited twelve years to see him, he could wait a few seconds more.

Shouto stood staring at his feet, not daring to look up. Natsuo waited, giving him all the time he needed.

Eventually, Shouto’s gaze moved. Slowly, as if fighting himself, his eyes moved upwards, across the ground, before lifting to where his brother stood under the tree.

Touya had been trying very hard to feign nonchalance, to do as Natsuo ordered and wait for Shouto.

Every fiber of his being was telling him to run, to snatch Shouto up and take him away, away from that house and that man and the knowledge of twelve years of fear and pain.

He made the mistake of looking up, and met Shouto’s eyes.

It was like a switch broke inside them both. Shouto took a step forward so quickly he almost fell over, and only Natsuo’s quick reflexes stopped him from going face-forward into the snow.

“Go on, Sho, it’s ok,” he said as he righted him.

Shouto glanced up at him briefly, then, seeing the smile on Natsuo’s face, looked back to where Touya was standing.

His arms were held slightly away from his body, having reached out without thinking as soon as Shouto had begun to fall.

Instincts never died after all, it seemed.

Shouto took a step forward at a much more hesitant pace. He kept his eyes resolutely on the ground, not daring to look up again until he stood barely a foot away from Touya, staring at the edge of his tattered coat.

It was lined with purple, the same colour as the scars on his skin.

Shouto looked up, and finally saw Touya’s face.

“Hey, brat,” Touya said.

For all the scars warping his face and arms, the metal staples holding his skin together, and the now-jet black of his hair, Touya was still the same.

Shouto did exactly the same as he had with his mother, and burst into tears.

“I missed you, nii-san,” he sobbed, wrapping his arms around Touya’s legs. “I really missed you.”

“I missed you too, bud,” Touya said. His voice did not hitch, and he shot a furious glare to Natsuo, silently warning him not to tell a soul.

Natsuo lowered his phone, a shit-eating grin spread across his face.

Shouto was oblivious to his brothers’ silent argument, having buried his face in Touya’s coat and inhaling deeply.

“You smell like smoke,” he said happily.

Touya frowned. “You happy about that?” he asked.

“mm-hmm!” Shouto withdrew from him, a grin spreading across his face. “It’s what you smell of,” he said. “Natsu-nii and nee-san smell like cold, and so does mommy. You, me and daddy smell like smoke.”

He wrinkled his nose slightly, expression vague with childish disgust. “But you smell like dirty smoke too,” he said.

Natsuo grinned again. “Yeah, bro, don’t you know smoking’s bad for you?” he teased.

“Shut up, brat,” Touya said, glaring at him.

“What’s smoking?” Shouto asked, looking between his brothers questioningly.

“It’s a bad habit and you shouldn’t ever do it,” Natsuo said. “I’m gonna go and get my book now. Don’t burn this place down while I’m gone, the library café does really good lunches.”

Touya glared at him again for good measure, but Shouto was still wrapped around his legs, hindering him from retaliating.

Natsuo strode off, leaving his brothers on their own.

Shouto seemed to pick up on the tension, and let go of Touya, tugging him instead to the same bench as before, unknowingly.

Now that Touya was here, he didn’t seem to know what to do. He climbed up onto the bench and sat in silence, twisting his hands together.

Touya took a seat opposite him, taking in the sight of the boy.

Geez, he really was tiny.

In some ways, this made things easier. Shouto was the same age now as he had been when Touya left (was forced to leave), so seeing him now, it was like those twelve long years just disappeared.

Were it not for the scars on his face and the name the world now knew him by, that was. Not that Shouto remembered any of that now, Natsuo had said.

Gods, he had nearly hurt Shouto. He had been ready to kill Shigaraki for that. The boy they had ended up capturing had been awful, screaming and yelling obscenities at them and nearly blasting the place to bits with his quirk.

Shouto would have behaved himself. Dabi had watched as his baby brother shrank into one of Compressor’s marbles, only to be ‘rescued’ at the last minute by his classmates.

He had been so close to taking him, getting him far away from UA and hiding him away from the world. He would have taken him away from the League, and they would have run, just the two of them.

Shouto probably would have hated him, but he would have come round eventually.

Of course, their father would tear the world apart looking for him, but that would have been worth it, too.

Oh well. Plans change. Now the opportunity was sitting in front of him anyway, and in a much easier form to control.

Shouto seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t find the words.

“What is it, brat?” Touya asked.

Shouto looked up at him, face pale, whether from cold or the question.

Touya sighed. “Just get it over with, Sho,” he said.

Shouto flushed, face matching his scar, and Dabi felt another rush of anger.

“Are-are you really a villain?” he burst out, then glanced around, scared in case anyone had heard them. Thankfully, the area was empty, no students wanting to brave the snow at this early hour of the morning.

For a moment, Touya was tempted to lie. Shouto would believe whatever he told him. No, he could say. Dabi isn’t me. He just looks like me, but it’s not. You can’t believe what anyone tells you, Shouto, you know that.

But he couldn’t.

For one thing, Natsuo was making his way back across to them, and Touya had no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate to leave him to the wolves if he did.

Instead, he sighed deeply, and let blue flames dance across his hand. “Sure am, brat.”

Shouto’s eyes reflected the flame, staring at it wondrously.

He frowned, looking up to Touya’s face accusingly.

“You’re in Natsu-nii’s game,” he informed him seriously.

“Am I?” Touya played along.

“Mm-hmm. You blowed a building up, and you tried to hurt my friends when we went to training camp. You tried to shrink me!”

Touya felt his lips twitch into a smile, and only Natsuo’s warning glare stopped him.

“Yeah, but you were fine, weren’t you?”

Shouto’s mouth fell open in childish outrage. “Only because Midoriya was there! He saved me! He’s my friend!”

His face flushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and his eyes filled with tears. Despite that, he stared at Touya seriously, mouth set.

“You have to say sorry to him, Touya-nii,” he said gravely. “I don’t remember being big, but I really want to be everyone’s friend again, so you have to say sorry to them when I’m big again, ok?”

He frowned. “Except Bakagou. You don’t need to say sorry to him, he’s mean.”

Natsuo let out a bark of laughter. “Ok, Sho, that’s enough. Touya is very sorry for crashing your training camp, and he will absolutely apologise to your class for it later. But right now, we need to get going. Or would you rather stay out here in the snow?”

Shouto shook his head, and hopped down from the seat.

He suddenly seemed to remember exactly why they had come out here, and stopped, staring up between his brothers again.

“Natsu-nii said I get to stay with you, Touya-nii?” he said, his voice turning it into a question.

Touya looked down at him, childish face full of hope and worry.

“Depends, brat. Do you want to stay with me and birdie?”

Shouto nodded. “I told Natsu-nii it would make daddy mad, and that nee-san will worry, but he said it’s ok.”

He bit his lip, looking up at Touya pleadingly.

“I don’t want to make daddy mad,” he said,  “but I really want to see you. I’m not allowed to stay with mommy at night, but if you and her can’t come home then I want to stay with you, just until I’m big again. Then we’ll go home, and then we can all go and see mommy and she can come home too, and then we’ll all live at home again.”

His eyes were wide and hopeful, and Touya had to look away. He caught Natsuo’s gaze, the unspoken conversation between them heavy with the knowledge of adults.

Neither of them wanted to destroy their little brothers hope, but some things just weren’t possible.

For him, though, they would do their best to try.

Touya looked down at Shouto again. He still stared up at him, exactly the same as he always had as a child.

“Ok, Sho. We’ll see. Now let’s go, birdie will be waiting for us.”

He reached a hand out to Shouto, who’s face lit up as he took it.

“Natsu-nii said ‘birdie’ is your friend from school, right, Touya-nii? Is he nice? Is he a real bird? Can he fly? One of my classmates is a bird, but he’s only got a bird head so he can’t fly.”

He frowned. “Oh, you need to say sorry to him, too, for training camp. But he did beat you, so maybe he should say sorry to you, too.”

Touya tried to think who he meant.

“Huh,” he said when he remembered. “You mean birdie’s kid.”

Shouto looked very confused at that. “His kid? But we’re the same age when I’m big. That would mean he would have to be as old as daddy, but you said you’re friends from school. You’re not as old as daddy.”

Touya ignored Natsuo’s laughter. “I didn’t mean it literally, Sho. That kid is interning with birdie, at his hero agency.”

“Oh.”

That seemed to be enough for Shouto, until he frowned again. “What’s an intern?”

Touya and Natsuo shared a glance. Natsuo shrugged. “Your problem now, bro,” he said.

Touya sighed. “It means you’re training with them, Sho.”

“Oh.” Shouto took this in, then looked up at Natsuo. “Am I an intern?” he asked.

“You get to train with dad,” his brother answered. “We told you, remember? You, Midoriya and Bakugou are all interning with him at his agency.”

“Oh, I remember.” Shouto’s face wrinkled with confusion. “I don’t understand why daddy would train someone mean like Bakagou.”

His face lit up again. “But Izuku is really nice! I want to invite him over when I’m big again! Do you think daddy would let me? He’s being really nice now, so maybe he would say yes.”

 Again, the elder brothers shared a glance.

“Maybe, Sho. Now, we gotta leave. Say goodbye to Natsu.”

“Bye-bye, Natsu-nii!”

He took Touya’s hand again, waving at Natsuo with the other.

Touya looked at his little brother seriously.

“Be safe,” he said.

“I don’t need to hear that from you,” Natsuo replied. “But you too. I’ll be fine. I can always go back to the dorms if I have to. I’ll stay, though, for Fuyu.”

“Keep her safe.”

Natsuo stared him down. “You know I will. But she can take care of herself. She’s stronger than any of us.”

Touya gave him a sad smile. “I know.”

A long moment stretched between them, the weight of what was about to happen weighing the air around them.

Touya took a deep breath, forcefully shaking it off. He was Dabi, and he could do this.

“Ok, Sho, let’s go.”

They turned around, Shouto turning to take one last look at Natsuo, waving happily.

They looked like any normal family, a man with a little boy at his side, chattering as they walked through the snow.

Natsuo stood in silence, waiting until they rounded the corner out of sight.

He took out his phone, sending a quick text before shutting it off and turning his face to the sky.

It was out of his hands now.

Keep them safe, Keigo.

Back in the apartment, Keigo waited for the two to arrive, worrying his lip nervously. His phone buzzed with a message, and he read it anxiously before typing a reply.

I will.

It wasn’t long before his doorbell chimed. He opened it to see his boyfriend standing with a tiny child in his arms.

“Move, birdie, Sho’s cold,” he said, shouldering his way in.

Keigo almost laughed in relief. “Go on, then, I’ll make hot chocolate for us all. His stuff is all in the other room, just like you wanted.”

Touya shot him a glance as he set Shouto down, his expression unreadable.

Shouto stood in the entryway, snow dripping off his jacket and looking around curiously.

“So, Shouto, your brother tells me you like playing games,” Keigo said, smiling brightly and channelling his best inner hero. “Do you have a favourite?”

Shouto looked up at him, eyes wide at the sight of the red wings spreading out across the man’s back.

“You’re really a bird!” he said, delighted.

Keigo laughed. “Sure am, mini-roki.”

He ushered him into the lounge, showing him the games. Shouto’s eyes lit up when he saw the familiar game, and looked over to Touya with a pleading expression.

“Go ahead, Sho,” his brother said. “Kick birdie’s ass.”

Shouto blinked, kooking back up at Keigo shyly.

“Your bro is messing with me, mimi-roki,” Keigo replied. “He knows he can never win against me.”

“Is that right, birdbrain?”

They fell into an easy pattern of familiarity, Touya setting up the console while Keigo went to make the promised hot chocolate.

For all the unspoken tension in the air, there was nothing they could do now but wait. Shouto was here, and for a few days longer at least, he would be safe.

Touya’s thoughts turned to his missing siblings, and the promise that Natsuo had forced him to make. He looked over to Shouto, who’s face had lit up at seeing the game on a bigger screen and was already holding the controller with a focussed expression.

Seeing his little brother so happy, Touya could forget all the plans and schemes.

The League. UA. Heroes and Villains. They could all burn, for all he cared.

He still didn’t believe that their father could change, and he didn’t think he could himself, either. His pain ran too deep to be forgiven with a few words of apology and promises of change.

He thought of his mother, locked away in a hospital, but believing in a better future.

His sister, making her own way in life, teaching a new generation of children.

His brother, proving that they didn’t need to ride on the family name.

Himself, living under the cloak of a villain, hell-bent on revenge on a man he hadn’t known in twelve years.

And Shouto, the baby, hope in his eyes for a life he didn’t remember and a future he wanted to believe in.

Touya didn’t want to believe in it, but he wanted that light to stay in his brother’s eyes.

Chapter Text

The house was quiet. Enji sat at his desk staring at his computer, annoyance steadily rising in him.

He was supposed to have taken the week off to be with his children. Instead, here he was, stuck (hiding) behind his work.

It wasn’t as though he had much to do. His underlings at the agency were actually functioning incredibly well without him, if not better.

Enji knew he was intimidating. It was an image he had carefully cultivated, and, once built, was too strong to dismantle. At first, he hadn’t wanted to appear approachable, and now, now that he wanted to, he found he no longer knew how.

It had started off as necessity. He had to beat Yagi Toshinori, the tall, smiling, shining beacon of peace.

All Might.

All might, and all smiles. He was friendly where Enji was not. He was kind, and approachable, and saved people with a smile and a laugh and his trademark booming call of “I am here!”

As a young man, just starting out on his hero career, trying to forge his own path, Enji had wanted people to know he was here, too.

Yagi seemed to sail through life. His quirk seemed to come effortlessly to him, his control over it thoughtlessly flawless, and so he reached ever greater heights with the cheering cries of adoration lifting him up.

Enji had to climb that mountain himself. His quirk was strong, certainly, but unlike Yagi, brute strength was not enough for Enji. He had to learn how to control his flames, and the numerous burn scars littering his skin stood as proof to the long hours he spent as a child learning how to control it, to tame the fire burning on his skin and make it malleable, obeying his control until he could do it not just on command, but without thought.

If Yagi had used his quirk to lift himself, Enji burned through the obstacles in his way. He learned to use their inevitable comparisons to his favour. Yagi smiled and waved, Enji stood stone-faced and immovable. Where Yagi was the symbol of peace, Enji was the force behind it, the second best who never quite matched up.

Look at them, people said. The no.1 and 2. They make a good pair, don’t you think? But All Might is the best, no doubt about that.

Maybe if he just smiled more.

Even his hero name reflected his inadequacy. Endeavor. All Might implied strength, became synonymous with it, until merely hearing the name itself was enough for people to relax, and believe in, and know they were saved.

Endeavor wasn’t enough. He chose it for its meaning; to prove to himself that he had a goal, one that he would work single-mindedly towards, ignoring anything in his way.

And it worked. At just twenty years old he rose through the ranks until no-one but All Might stood above him.

If all he had cared about was titles, he could have worn a smile like Yagi, and played the lovable fool like him.

Only, it wasn’t enough. Those two numbers meant everything to him. As long as All Might was number one, Enji would never be good enough for himself.

He just wanted to be the strongest. Was that really so bad?

After all, he had one thing that Yagi didn’t, and possibly never would.

He had a family.

He had married Rei at just 21 years old. For all that it had been arranged, he thought that they had learnt to love each other. Yes, he had chosen her, singled her out for her quirk, thinking that it would temper his own. Their children would be a mixture of ice and fire, and stronger than the both of them.

He had bought her flowers, after an off-handed comment from her, and for a while they had been happy.

Their son was born less than a year after they married. They named him Touya, their little arrow, to fire forward into the future. Two years later they had Fuyumi, their little winter flower.

By then, Touya was beginning to show his quirk, earlier than most children, but unsurprising given his parentage.

Even then, his flames had shown signs of being better than Enji’s. They started off as the same red and orange, but soon turned into a burning, bright blue fiercer even than his baby-wide eyes.

Enji started training him at just 3 years old. Rei had insisted he was far too young, but Enji remembered the pain of unkempt flames flaring across his skin, and the thought of little Touya, his son, his future, crying out in that same pain, calling for his father to help, sent fear rushing through him.

Touya had taken to the training easily. He learnt to channel the flames, to damp them down and control them until they danced for him on command.

Enji was never sure exactly when it turned into something more. For all that Touya’s quirk was powerful, he seemed to have inherited Rei’s weaker constitution.

It started off as reasoning. If he simply trained him more, Enji reasoned, perhaps Touya would grow out of the weakness, becoming ever-stronger like his father. Perhaps it was just because he was a child, and the sooner he could learn to control his quirk, the less it would hurt him, the less the worry that it would overwhelm him. It was just a case of mind over matter.

Control turned into training, and with every failure Enji felt frustration rising in him. Fuyumi presented her own quirk, her mother’s ice, but weaker instead of stronger. Enji told her it didn’t matter, that he loved her regardless, that he was just glad she was healthy.

Enji focussed his efforts on Touya, and he seemed to take to the challenge easily. With both a boy and a girl, their family seemed to be complete. Enji and Touya, Rei and Fuyumi. One child for each parent, one quirk each, and if the desired mixing of quirks hadn’t worked, well, it was never a guarantee anyway. Touya would learn to control his flames, and become his father’s successor.

And then Natsuo had been born. Enji continued to train Touya, although the boy was beginning to push back against him now. Burn scars kept appearing on his limbs, and their training sessions more often than not ended in shouting and Touya storming off.

“I’m not you, dad! I don’t want to be a hero, anyway!”

Enji didn’t understand. He was still the number 2. He kept his family out of the media, refusing to travel the TV circuit like the other heroes, and luckily his reputation allowed it.

He’s a private man, they said. He was indomitable, and any questions about his family soon tailed off. It suited him perfectly.

But that anger had to go somewhere, and the secrecy weighed on him. He pushed Touya for his own safety. If he couldn’t learn to control his flames, he could get hurt. He had started school now, had even made friends. But the fear of those flames going out of control kept Enji awake at night.

Rei tried to talk him out of it, tried to persuade him that Touya had learnt his limits, that he knew not to push too far. Enji shook his head.

“He can do better, I know he can. Focus on Fuyumi and Natsuo. They have your quirk, you should teach them.”

Rei shook her head, her face turning ever sadder day-by-day, it seemed. “I’m not a teacher, Enji. They’ll learn at school, when they’re ready. But Touya is hurting. Please, you have to stop before it goes too far.”

“It won’t. He’ll learn, just like I did.”

Rei had slowly stopped asking, eventually giving up completely. She tended to Touya’s wounds, Enji knew, comforting him with soft words and hugs in a way that he never could.

Sometimes, he wondered if it was because they were just too young. Enji stood on the podium, the world’s eyes watching his every move, and the pressure was sometimes too much too bear.

He was the strongest, bar All Might, and he had an image to maintain. Touya’s flames grew more and more out of control, until his skin seemed to be permanently reddened.

Enji had built a wall around himself for his own safety. With Rei, he was able to lower it at will. When Touya was born, there was a brief time when it seemed to dissolve entirely. Holding his newborn son in his arms, he had felt a rush of something indescribable.

This tiny form held all the hope for the future. They were an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with hopes and dreams and goals, and Enji would be there to help him through it all.

He truly didn’t know when it all went too far. Touya was beginning to reject his training entirely, becoming rebellious and angry.

In desperation, Enji asked Rei if they could try for another child. He didn’t know what he was thinking. Natsuo had already proven that the third time was not always lucky, and they had no reason to believe that trying again would produce the perfect child he wanted.

Somehow, Rei had agreed.

Many times through the years Enji had wondered what would happen if she had not. Perhaps none of this would have happened. Maybe he would have learnt to be happy, to give up the idea of shaping Touya into his prodigy. He could have taught Fuyumi and Natsuo to shape their ice as well, and they could have been a proper family.

Perhaps he even would have retired, or at least taken a lesser role. He could have become a family man, father and husband first and hero second.

But that was all speculation. Shouto was born, and from the moment Enji saw his two-tone eyes blinking up at him he knew he had done it.

Shouto was the perfect child. The amalgamation of both their quirks, only made clearer when his hair began to cover his head, perfectly split in white and red.

Unable to wait until Shouto was old enough, Enji redoubled his efforts to train Touya.

Touya, for his part, seemed to be revitalised by Shouto’s birth. Enji had truly believed that it was because he liked the idea of having a little brother to work and play with.

Enji pictured the two of them playing together, Touya teaching Shouto to shape his flames, and the image made him smile in a way he hadn’t in years. With Touya trained, Enji would be able to take a step back, watching his son pass on his training instead.

Somehow, everything went wrong. Shouto’s twin quirks presented, in the perfect mix of power and control.

Enji was, in the end, simply too eager. He had started training Touya too young out of necessity, for his own health and safety.

He had thought to apply the same reasoning to Shouto, and it was not until far too late that he realised his mistakes.

Shouto may have been powerful, but he was just a child. Oh, he took to training quickly, that was beyond doubt. But where Touya had had his father’s sole attention, now Enji had to try and balance both.

Enji had spent his life pushing against his own limits, and breaking through them. Why was it wrong to teach his sons the same?

It was all he knew.

It was all he knew, and it was all going wrong. With every one of Touya’s rebellions, Enji turned towards Shouto, pushing him ever further in the hope of erasing Touya’s mistakes, hoping that Shouto would follow him, not his brother.

Rei no longer protested. She had become pale and silent after Shouto’s birth, and barely even spoke to Enji anymore.

In a stroke of desperation, Enji made the decision to train Shouto on his own, keeping him away from siblings. They would only drag him down, he reasoned. If he kept him on his own, then Shouto wouldn’t follow in Touya’s footsteps. He didn’t mean to keep them from playing together, but Rei was with them, so it wasn’t as though they were alone.

Besides, Shouto was clearly the best, so it was better for them all if they were separated. He was too young to go to school, so it was no different to private training, after all. By doing it this way, as harsh as it was, it would surely be better for them all.

He would be truly blind indeed if he had not noticed the tension in the house, but he ignored it, telling himself that it was all for the best.

At this point, he no longer knew if there was a way to make things right. He had set himself on this path, and he couldn’t see any other way forward. For Shouto’s sake, he had to see it through till the end.

Shouto was five years old. By the time he was this age, Touya had already been training for two years, so what was the problem?

Rei had screamed at him then, hugging Shouto in her arms tightly, protecting him.

Enji had looked at them together, crouched on the kitchen floor, and felt a terrible premonition, pushed so far down inside him that he could barely recognise it for what it was.

It was a breaking point, and like many things, Enji had not seen it until it was far, far too late.

It ended with Shouto scarred, Rei broken, and Touya injured beyond repair, if he was even still alive.

Enji had stood in the dojo, surrounded by blue-white flames, and felt his house and life falling down around him.

He had Touya placed in a secure hospital, in the care of the best surgeons possible. Even then, they warned him that he may never recover, and would be horribly burned even if he did.

Enji gave them all the money they needed and more, buying them into silence.

He had Rei committed to the same institution.

His remaining children were silent. The house was rebuilt, the damage built and painted over, erasing the memory of the pain and hurt that had filled the walls.

Enji had thrown himself into his hero work, unable to cope with his guilt. He lay awake at night filled with regrets, but too committed to his path to waver.

It was far too late to change anything. Fuyumi still loved him, he could tell, but fear and sadness lingered in her eyes until he could hardly bear to look at her face, so much like Rei’s. Natsuo made his hatred far more open, in glares and barely-obeyed instructions. He began to spend as little time at home as possible, until by middle school he was only coming home to eat and sleep.

Shouto was the only who still needed him, the only one still young enough to believe in him. He resented him, definitely, refusing to use his flames, but Enji was desperate enough by this point to accept whatever measures he could.

His training paid off. Shouto was accepted in UA, and for once Enji could believe that his goal had worked.

Until he watched his son battle some unknown boy, and saw as Shouto’s flames leapt to life to defeat him.

He cornered the boy after that, and vowed to remember the name of Izuku Midoriya.

His determination only grew when he learned that the boy was Yagi’s protégé. It gave Shouto renewed determination, too, and Enji relaxed slightly.

Nothing had gone to plan, but perhaps things could be better from now on.

Except it didn’t. Barely a few months into the term, UA was attacked, by villains far worse than anything many heroes had ever faced.

And yet, the children, mere teenagers, fought them off. Their teacher, an underground pro-hero by the name of Aizawa Shota that Enji was only vaguely aware of, was horribly injured, but thanks to Recovery Girl he would live.

It kept going. The children focused their efforts on their training, and Enji was only left behind as Shouto blossomed under the teachings of adults who did not drill pain and fear and the dread of failure into them, but patience and kindness.

With Shouto in school, and Natsuo and Fuyumi in college and work, Enji was able to focus once again on being a pro hero.

The villains continued to grow in power and evil. Enji paid attention to the rumours, familiarising himself with their names and descriptions as his job and position required.

 After UA was attacked, he did so even more diligently.

He was, like many of the parents, reluctant to send Shouto to the training camp after what had happened. It was only with the assurance from the teachers and animalistic headmaster that he had allowed it, and only after drilling Shouto fiercely to ensure that he would be safe if anything happened.

It was just as well he did, as his worst fears were realised. The class was attacked once again, this time in a remote location away from the safety of the city.

One of the boys was taken, and it was only due to the efforts of the others that Shouto remained safe.

His son came home, and told him about how they had rescued their classmate from a man with burned skin and blue flames.

“His eyes were the same colour as yours, father,” Shouto had said, one hand raising to cover his own piercing blue. “It was probably just the flames, but he looked almost familiar.”

Enji’s blood ran cold at that. He tried very hard not to think about it, refusing to look up the villain even as the office filled with talk of him.

The coincidences were too great to ignore. A man in his early twenties, they said. Have you seen him? They say his skin is purple, and he holds it together with huge metal staples. I bet it was his quirk that did it. Doesn’t blue fire burn hottest of all?

There were quieter, more insidious rumours, spoken in hushed voices and quickly silenced when Endeavor drew near.

His quirk must have gone out of control, and made him look like that. I wonder if that’s what made him a villain.

There were some voices who even spoke out against him, and Shigaraki too.

“I know they’re villains, but it’s a shame. Society isn’t kind to those with destructive quirks. They couldn’t help how they were born, after all.”

Others hushed them, pointing to the number of heroes with just such quirks.

“Look at Endeavor! He has a flame quirk, and he’s the no.2 hero! Clearly its all about how you control it, not your quirk itself. I bet if this Dabi was trained by someone like Endeavor, he wouldn’t have ever become a villain.”

Enji felt the words stab at him, and refused to give thought to the idea that lay as a tiny, tiny sprout deep within him.

Surely it was just a coincidence. A horrible, horrible coincidence, but just a fluke.

Enji had more important things to worry about. All Might was injured, and with his scars and condition made known, he stood down, allowing Enji to rise to the position he had always striven for.

He had made it. It had taken twenty five years, but he was now the number one hero.

He had an office full of underlings, and even a second in command, a plucky young man who only seemed to go by the name Hawks. His quirk gave him brilliant red wings, and the sight of them stirred a long-suppressed memory within him.

“I made a friend at school today, dad. His name is Keigo, and his quirk is a bird. He’s got huge red wings, and he can fly!”

A search on Hawks had come up blank. Enji had narrowed his eyes, staring at the boy’s face on the computer screen, all information carefully left out, and wondered.

Whatever his past, they worked well together, it seemed. Perhaps it was their similarities. Hawks was the no.2 hero, just three years older than Enji had achieved it, and shared the same work ethic, if for strangely contradictory reasons.

“I wanna make this world one where heroes have time to kill,” he had said, leaning nonchalantly on the table with his head in one hand and grinning widely.

It was an odd goal, especially in finale to his proposal, but that was Hawks all over. He was the same as Yagi, grinning and waving and signing autographs to his cheering admirers.

Enji had tried the same, and been rebuffed. It really was too late for him to change, it seemed.

Hawks’ smiled had lasted all of a few minutes, before their world came crashing down in a rain of glass and gore and feathers as Hawks tried to save as many people as he could, to buy Enji as much time as possible to defeat this thing.

Enji had fought many villains before, and none had given off quite so much revulsion as the Nomu. It was a twisted freak of creation, an eldritch horror that surely could not be natural. Its brain was exposed, leaving its eyes bugged out and spinning in all directions.

It spoke, the words halting and mangled, but still terrifyingly understandable. Enji fought down the bile that rose to his throat, and fought like he never had before.

It was barely enough. But the faces of his family flashed through his mind, the eyes of them and the world watching.

He raised his flames to their very highest, and fought with everything he had.

He watched as, horrifying, the thing tore its own head off, throwing it towards him.

Enji had no time to move, less than a split second before it hit him. Pain tore through his face as his skin ripped with the force, viscera mixing with blood to stream down his face, blinding him.

He lay on the ground, exhaustion and pain warring for prominence within him, and suddenly, he knew what his sons felt like. This was what he had done to them.

If he failed now, he would never be able to apologise to them.

Somehow, he found the strength to move, to stand and fight, summoning his flames further than it seemed he ever had before.

He rose into the sky, and screamed the motto he had always hated. The Nomu burned, and Enji fell.

Later, he could make sense of it all. He could begin to replay the fight, seeing himself walk away with Hawks supporting him, his fist raised in the mirror of the man he had spent his life trying to surpass.

Lying in his hospital bed, with a new scar covering his face, it felt like a hollow victory.

He had avoided looking in the mirror for a few days, on the advice of his doctors.

“We don’t advise looking at it immediately,” they had said. “Its standard advice for burn victims, or injuries of any kind. You’ve seen it on TV, and we’ve done all we can, but it’s going to be a part of you now.”

He deserved it. It showed he was a survivor.

It was so much more than that.

He had fought the Nomu, and beaten it. And then Dabi had appeared, ready to go in for the kill. By then, others were there, Mirko and the rest of the heroes, ready to take him down.

They hadn’t needed to. Dabi had disappeared, leaving them standing in the wreckage with his words echoing in Enji’s head.

“Don’t go dying on me, Enji Todoroki!”

Seeing him that close, Enji could no longer deny it. The pieces fit together far too neatly, and now he was certain.

Whatever name he went by now, the man who had stood in front of him and asked him not to die was Touya.

He was alive, he was a villain, and it was all Enji’s fault.

The knowledge weighed heavily on him. Unable to speak, he did as he always had, and ignored it. For his part, Touya remained quiet too, presumably planning something that Enji had no way of preparing for, other than the knowledge itself.

Instead, he turned to his younger children. He could use the scar, and the fight itself, to his advantage. Shouto had been condescending, staring at him speculatively while slurping noodles, his favourite food (how had Enji never known his own son’s favourite food until now, he wondered), the action deliberately rude.

Enji forgave him for it. He told his family that he wanted to change, that he didn’t expect them to believe him, or forgive him, but determined anyway.

Brute strength had got him this far, and now he was in unknown territory.

Fuyumi had burst into tears, and hugged him tightly.

“I saw it all on TV,” she had said, sobbing. “I was so scared. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

She believed in him, and he saw the light and happiness shining in her eyes.

Natsuo did not, and stormed out of the house, yelling angry words as he blinked back tears. Enji accepted it, knowing he meant and deserved every word.

Shouto was, as always, a balance of the two. He looked at Enji critically, judging the sincerity of his words, and eventually gave his announcement.

“As a hero, you’re amazing,” he told Enji, looking away at the TV. “But I want to find out what kind of dad you can be.”

Shouto, at least, believed that a turning point could change someone. Enji wondered if he was obliquely referring to his own revelation at the sports festival, deciding to use his flames for the first time.

Regardless, it was a start. Shouto had already decided to intern with him of his own accord, and now two other boys had joined as well. One of them Enji knew, the one who had been captured at the training camp (he refused to think about the implications of it, given who he now knew who exactly that kidnapper was) and the other was, largely unsurprisingly, the boy from the sports festival, Yagi’s trainee.

Enji supposed that was inevitable. With Yagi now permanently out of commission, it was almost a given that his protégé’s training would fall to Endeavor.

It helped that he and Shouto seemed to be close. Enji tried not to feel a sense of satisfaction from it, that he was now training both his son and his son’s would-be rival.

The fact that the boy seemed to be hell-bent on becoming the next symbol of peace rankled him, but at least he showed determination, if nothing else.

The last boy, Bakugou, was something of a mystery. Angry, loud and violent, the boy seemed to have no manners at all. He was rude and uncivilised even to Enji himself, totally unlike proper hero material.

He was everything that Enji could have become. Enji accepted his internship, determined to train the boy into something better, to show him a different path than that of violence and anger. He was young, and however deeply ingrained his behaviour was he was still young enough to change.

When he and Shouto failed their hero license exam, Enji was furious, but tried to keep it under control. He watched as Shouto learnt to engage with the children, showing them a different way with a patience and understanding that Enji could never achieve.

His son was already better than he was, and he could not be more proud. He sat next to Yagi, a broken, shadowed shell of a man, yet still standing tall with the knowledge that while his own role was over, his hope flourished in the boys they saw before them, who would carry that torch into the future.

Shouto left that day with his hero license in his hands, and barely half an hour later he and Bakugou had taken down their first villain on their own.

The next week had gone smoothly as the class, and the city, wound down towards Christmas. Shouto had asked and been given permission to spend the next weekend at home, to celebrate with his family.

 “Just make sure he’s back on Monday morning,” Aizawa had said over the phone, sounding as bored and indolent as ever.

It was supposed to be a quiet, normal weekend. A family celebration between father and son, where Enji could tell him how proud he was, and perhaps they could begin the heal the pain of a lifetime.

Instead, he had been greeted with the sight of his son sitting on the pavement just a few blocks away from the house, as though the last twelve years had never happened.

Now he sat alone in his office, hiding from the very situation he swore he would use for good. They had come so far, he thought. Shouto had seen his mother, and come away happier than he had ever seen him as a child. He had called him daddy, something that only Fuyumi had ever done, and even then that had faded into first dad, then father, as the distance between them had only grown, insurmountable and as frozen as her quirk. It had only been recently that she had started to open up to him again, and smiled, and even sung, softly, when she thought no-one was listening.

He frowned, deliberately bringing himself back to the present, shaking off the thoughts of the past.

Come to think of it, he had heard her singing a while ago, but now the house seemed silent.

He rose from the chair, straining his ears to listen.

Taking a deep breath, he strode towards the door, determined to make the most of however long this situation lasted. Hiding himself away would solve nothing.

Opening the door, he was greeted with the sound of silence. Frowning, he made his way to the lounge, where Fuyumi sat with her head bowed over a stack of papers.

She looked up as she heard his footsteps. “Oh, hey dad,” she greeted. “Did you finish your work?”

He nodded absently, looking around the room. “Where’s Shouto?” he asked.

Fuyumi’s face fell, and she bit her lip, stumbling. “Well, uh. Don’t get mad,” she began. “But Natsuo had to go and get a book from the library, and Shouto was getting really bored cooped up inside, so we thought as long as he was wearing a coat and har no-one would be able to see him, and he promised he wouldn’t be long, so we thought if they just went straight there and came back it would get Shouto out of the house for a bit. I’m sure they’ll be ok, please dad? Natsuo will keep him safe, I know he will. Please?”

It was only through sheer force of will that Enji kept his temper. A million fears ran through his head, from villains and the unknown attacker to totally irrational thoughts of being hit by an errant vehicle, or even slipping on ice.

Instead, he took a deep breath, and in as calm as voice as he could manage, asked, “When did they leave?”

Fuyumi seemed to relax, letting out a shaky breath of relief. “Oh, about a quarter of an hour ago. I told Natsuo to be less than an hour. I’m sure they won’t be long.”

As if on cue, her phone chimed. “See, he says they’re just coming in now. I’ll go and put the kettle on.”

She rose from her seat, making her way into the kitchen.

Enji tried to stop himself turning to the door and staring at it as if that would make his sons appear on command.

Nevertheless, he felt the tension rising, and the handful of minutes it took before he heard the gate swing open seemed like an eternity.

He kept himself very still as he heard Natsuo’s steps tread up to the door. He was probably carrying Shouto, as the snow had obviously become heavier in the last few hours and would be difficult for a child to wade through.

Natsuo slid the door open, and Enji heard him stamping out the snow from his boots as he entered the genkan.

Enji waited until he was sure enough time had passed, then stepped into the hall.

Natsuo looked up as he heard Enji come out, and froze.

“Oh,” he said.

Enji looked behind Natsuo, not seeing the small coat and boots of his youngest son. His panic flared to life again.

“Where is he?” he asked fiercely.

Natsuo straightened to his full height, slowly turning to look Enji in the eye.

A long, calculating moment passed, in which Enji could almost see the thoughts running through his son’s head.

In a slow, almost dreadfully carefree voice, he replied,

“He’s fine. He’s with Touya.”

Chapter Text

With those three words, a thousand thoughts flashed through Enji’s mind at once, too fast for him to pick out a single thought, save one.

He’s alive.

The sheer level of emotion that thought gave him was blinding. Enji felt his flames flare unconsciously across his body for a split second, shockingly fierce, before he forcibly regained control.

Unable to formulate a better answer, all he could manage to respond was, “I see.”

He couldn’t meet Natsuo’s eyes, having seen the flash of terror across his son’s face when his flames roared to life.

He’s scared of me.

Enji had never hurt Natsuo, not once. It had never occurred to him to do so. Natsuo had never given him trouble like his brothers had, and with his weak ice quirk, Enji had never seen the point of training him.

He had ignored him, utterly, but never hurt him. Now, he wasn’t even sure which was worse.

“What?”

Natsuo’s shocked voice brought Enji out of the dark place his thoughts threatened to retreat to.

He looked up to see Natsuo staring at him worriedly, one hand still holding his shoe as if frozen in motion.

Enji deliberately breathed in and out, trying to regain a sense of calm.

“Take your shoes off and come into the lounge,” he said. “This conversation will take some time. Fuyumi, could you make some tea?”

Fuyumi squeaked, having been standing behind the door to the lounge.

“Yes, I’ll be right back,” she promised, hurrying away.

Natsuo set his shoes down as ordered and followed him wordlessly.

Enji took a seat on the sofa, motioning for Natsuo to sit opposite.

They sat in silence until Fuyumi brought the tea in. The tray held only two cups, and she placed them both in front of them, then retreated.

“I’ll be in my room,” she said.

Enji spared a moment to wonder why she didn’t want to be there, then realised why.

His daughter had always hated conflict, preferring to hide and return once the anger had faded, to act as the peacemaker, smoothing things out afterwards.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she hid there crying silent tears while the men argued, or if she had repressed her anger and fear for so long that she simply didn’t allow herself to feel it.

There was so much he didn’t know about his children, he realised. His eldest son, most of all. Gathering what calm he could, Enji forced his gaze over to Natsuo, who sat stiffly, as if ready to flee at any moment.

“How long have you been in contact with him?” Enji began, his voice carefully controlled.

Natsuo frowned, clearly confused at the question, and looked away, clearly trying to gather his thoughts.

“Not long,” he answered eventually. “Only a few days.”

Enji unpacked this in silence, a sharp intake of breath the only sign that he worked out what that meant. Natsuo’s refusal to look up from his clenched hands was as good as a confession, and his posture didn’t help, hunched in on himself like a prisoner at an interrogation.

Enji stayed silent as well, not trusting his voice if he were to speak, and not having any kind of answer anyway.

Natsuo took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. His voice, when he spoke, was monotone, as if knowing his fate was sealed and past caring about the consequences.

“I got a message from someone a few days ago,” he began, tonelessly. “I’d never met them, but I know of them, so I knew they were legit. They said that they had heard something about someone who wanted to take you down, and asked if I wanted to know about it. I don’t know exactly how they found me, but if I had to guess it was probably through Sho’s social media.”

Enji resolved to have a talk about privacy with his son after this was over, but it was far from the time.

“I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I said yes,” Natsuo continued. “I don’t know why. I guess I was curious, so I agreed. They called me, and said that they had someone they wanted me to meet, and if I was up for it then I could choose the place.”

His hands tightened, the skin around his palms whitening with the force.

“I chose the college because I knew it would be quiet, and because if it turned out they were…y’know, a psycho or something, there would still be people around.”

He gave a low, twisted laugh.

“I really didn’t expect it to be…him,” he said. “I really didn’t know what to think. I’m crazy angry at him for being a villain, obviously, but more than that I was just so happy that he’s alive. We talked, and then we decided to go through with this.”

He took a deep breath and let it out explosively, still staring at his hands.

“I wasn’t thinking. I knew it was stupid, but last night Sho came to me and said he wanted to see him, so I told him everything, and he was so happy. I thought it was worth it, for a day at least.”

 He stopped, silence stretching out for a long moment, and Enji thought he had finished speaking, until he suddenly lifted his shoulders, spreading his hands out and staring at them unseeingly.

His voice, when he spoke again, was utterly blank.

“I didn’t think you’d find out so quickly,” he said. “Fuyu said you’d be in your office all day, so I figured you wouldn’t even notice he was gone until at least dinner.”

Enji felt his mouth twist into a grimace. Somehow, that hurt more than anything else.

Natsuo apparently wasn’t finished. He seemed to be past waiting for Enji to react, or else had given up, retreating into himself like he had already accepted the inevitable.

“Do you even care?” he wondered aloud. “I watched you fight him on TV, and I was so scared that he was going to kill you. But then the camera showed him close up, and all I could think was that he looked so familiar.”

He lifted a hand to his face, unconsciously tracing his fingers along the lines of the scars, as if feeling the scars and metal embedded in his brother’s skin himself.

“I never believed when people say that something takes their breath away,” he said, almost conversationally. “But when I heard him speak, I honestly couldn’t breathe for a second, because that was nii-san’s voice. He sounds exactly like me. It was like hearing myself on TV. And I thought maybe I was just imagining it, but then I saw Fuyu looking over at me, and she was crying, so I know she noticed it too.”

Enji had noticed it, of course, how could he not? But with his vision and senses distorted by the blood running down his face, he had been in too much pain to comprehend it fully, and had, as with all the myriad other details, pushed it to the back of his mind.

Natsuo didn’t notice the expressions that crossed his father’s face. After the silence stretched on, he eventually looked up.

His eyes were red with the effort of holding back tears, the skin around them puffy and stretched. He looked tired, worn out and defeated, caught in the act and with nowhere to run.

Looking at him, Enji was suddenly struck with the thought that Natsuo would be the only one of his sons whose face would remain smooth and unmarred. It was a horrible thought.

Of course, ice could burn, too, and Enji felt a strange rush of gladness that Fuyumi and Natsuo had such weak quirks. Too late, he saw that it had protected them, sparing them the pain that their brothers had been forced to endure.

See where it has brought you, he thought.

Natsuo was frowning now, confusion warring with anger clear across his face.

“You haven’t said anything,” he noted, somewhat uselessly. “Why haven’t you said anything? Aren’t you mad?”

When Enji didn’t respond, he kept going, his voice gradually rising.

“Don’t you even care about any of this?! We went behind your back. Touya wanted to get Shouto out of this house, because his last memory was burning to death because of you, and he was terrified of Sho going through that again. Sho’s with him right now, with a villain who tried to hurt him and his classmates, and I thought that even so, he’s still safer than he was here, because he’s with Touya. Who is alive! He’s alive and he’s a villain and he’s Dabi. He wants to kill you!”

Natsuo stood up suddenly, his hands raising to grasp at his hair, ignoring the pain.

“The weird thing is, I don’t know whether to hate him for it or not,” he said, voice hitching. “He’s a villain, he’s killed people, and as much as I’m terrified of that, I’m just so glad to know he’s ok, he’s alive. But then I watched him say he wants to kill you, and even though I know he’s already a murderer I don’t want him to kill you, even though part of me thinks that you deserve it for what you did to him. You nearly killed him, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to try the same?”

He started pacing across the floor, ignoring the tears falling down his face.

“I’m terrified for Sho to even be in the same room as him, but then I think that his only thought was to get Sho out of this house, because he was terrified of him being back here. He even said that if I hadn’t agreed to this, he would have tried to get Sho out himself. He didn’t even care that you would be here, he just wanted to get Sho out. And Sho knows who he is, even if he doesn’t remember now, but he doesn’t care that he’s Dabi. He just wanted to see Touya.”

He stopped pacing suddenly, turning to level his full gaze on Enji.

“But you know the worst thing?” he said. “The worst thing is that even though he’s a villain, even though he’s killed people, even though he tried to hurt Sho, even though he wants to kill you, I can’t hate him for it. Because as horrible as everything he’s done and is, I can understand it.”

He looked Enji straight in the eye, with more anger than Enji had ever seen.

“The worst thing is that this is your fault,” he said. “You made him this way, and now look where it’s got you. Very heroic, dad.” He spat the word like it was poison, and it hit Enji like a bullet.

Enji bore it stoically, unable to refute any of it.

The room stretched into silence again. Natsuo began to pale, obviously expecting retaliation, and Enji could see his fear grow with every second he failed to react.

“Are you finished?” he eventually said.

He watched as Natsuo instinctively sneered at him, his body moving before his brain caught up, before he suddenly flinched and swallowed visibly, then silently took his seat on the chair again.

Enji took a long time before speaking, thinking over his words carefully before starting to reply.

“I don’t expect you to believe a word I say,” he began.

Natsuo pursed his mouth and looked away, folding his arms with false bravado, but from the frown coupled with his cautious gaze Enji knew that he was curious enough to hear him out, even unwillingly.

When he was sure Natsuo was not going to bolt out of the room, he continued, each word slow and measured.

“I had…suspicions, for a long time, since Shouto went to that training camp,” Enji said. “I wondered why the League seemed to give up so easily, why they did not try harder to take Shouto, when they took his classmate. And after Shouto gave the description of…him, obviously the thought occurred to me.”

Natsuo rolled his eyes, but stayed in his seat.

Enji continued. “After Kamino, and the aftermath, there were more important things to focus on. It was still one of our main concerns, obviously, but the Nomu were by far the greatest threat, not the League themselves.”

He looked at Natsuo seriously, and to his credit, Natsuo held his gaze.

“I have a position in society, Natsuo, and no matter what I must be Endeavor above all,” he said. “After the events of Kamino, I was forced to become the no.1 hero, my one goal, in a way that I could not accept. I also had to keep the city safe, and that took priority over anything else.”

His mouth twisted as he remembered that night, and the horrified looks on the face of every viewer as All Might’s condition had become known to the world, and the terror that followed.

“I wasn’t there at the raid on Shie Hassaikai,” he continued. “I didn’t see the child they rescued, but Shouto has, and every time he describes her I can see the look in his eyes, his hatred. He compares me to Overhaul, and rightly.”

He held Natsuo’s gaze, his expression more serious and sadder than Natsuo had ever seen.

“You’re right,” he said simply. “I was no better than him, worse even. That girl was not his child, no relation to him at all, while everything I did was to my own children.”

Hearing the raw grief in his voice, Natsuo now regretted having ever spoken. Enji didn’t seem to notice, his voice turning almost distant. It sounded horrible in a man so strong.

“I tried to convince myself that I was better, that you were better, because that girl was traumatised and hidden away from the world. I told myself that you three have all grown up well and healthy, that even if you hate me, you are alright, and so I did well.”

Natsuo just wanted him to stop, but kept listening in horror. Some part of him, a horrible part he tried to deny, was glad to see him reduced to this, forced to confront his actions.

At least it showed he was human. Natsuo wondered for a moment whether it would be better if Enji showed no remorse at all, and could stay as the distant, cruel, angry father of his memories, instead of this strange, broken, diminished man his father had become.

“I am many things, Natsuo, but I am not stupid,” Enji said, startling him. “I got the reports of this new villain, with blue flames and burned skin, and I began to put the pieces together. I knew there was a possibility he had survived, and that if he had, he would surely want me dead. I just hid from it, because it would mean facing up to my actions, and I was too much of a coward to do that.”

Enji spread his own hands, turning them over as if analysing the myriad scars littering the tanned skin.

“Despite what you think, I do recognise the wrongs I’ve done,” he said, making Natsuo startle, unable to look away. “I know you don’t believe that, but I was always aware on some level that what I was doing was horrendously wrong. I simply chose to tell myself that it was all for the best reasons, and that you would thank me for it one day.”

Natsuo’s instinctual reaction to that was to scoff, but the sadness in Enji’s tone made him feel that it would be too much, unnecessarily cruel.

For, as much as he didn’t want to, he understood his father. He didn’t like it, he didn’t agree with it, and he certainly hated living through it, but the reason, however twisted, made sense.

The road to hell, and all that, he thought wryly.

He was unconsciously hanging on his father’s words now, wanting to hear the rest of it.

Enji sighed deeply, lifting his shoulders in what was almost a dismissive shrug.

“We knew that there had to be more of the Nomu, that the facility we raided was hardly the only one, but we all hoped that we would have more time to prepare,” he explained. “Instead, we were caught off guard, and it was just Hawks and I against them.”

He seemed to…slump, almost, as the memories hit him, retreating into himself in a way that honestly scared Natsuo. His eyes, when he met them, were lit with a kind of manic fire, as if forcing him to understand.

“I have never been more afraid in my life than fighting that beast,” he said. “Not when I became the number 2 hero, not when I married your mother, not even when I held each of you in my arms for the first time. I had always been so certain that I would succeed, that I would become stronger, that I could win. That…thing gave me a taste of death, and for the first time in my life I had to face the thought that I could die, here and now.”

He swallowed, the swell of his throat bobbing and making him seem far too human.

Heroes were supposed to be strong, not scared. Natsuo felt like cringing away, telling him to stop, you’re scaring me, dad, please stop.

Enji didn’t stop. His voice was strained, but he continued, “I survived because I knew that you were watching me. Call it cowardice, or strength, or what you will, but my only thought was that I did not want my children to watch me die, and that I had to save the city.”

He stopped, swallowing again, and cleared his throat. His voice, when he spoke again, was quiet.

“It is quite likely that I would have died, if it weren’t for Hawks,” he said. “Still, when I lifted that thing into the sky, I was quite prepared for the fact that that might have been the last thing I ever saw. And as I felt it burn my face, I thought for a moment that it was only what I deserved. I don’t believe in fate, or destiny, but when faced with death like that, I could believe that I was only getting what was due to me.”

He frowned, clenching his hands, not looking at Natsuo. “I will not demean you by saying that that moment gave me some sort of epiphany. Shouto believes that it was a ‘turning point’, but I think that it was when I saw him use his flames for the first time, without me, in spite of me, that I realised that I had to change, that if he, my child, could, then so could I.”

He turned his gaze up to Natsuo then, letting his full expression show.

“You have every right to be angry at me, Natsuo,” he said. “And so does Touya. You’re right, he would have killed me then, if he had not been spirited away. And while I would not have let him, I would have done everything in my power to see him captured, not so that he would be taken out of my sight, but because doing so would keep him safe.”

Natsuo’s confusion must have shown, making Enji sigh deeply. He took a moment before continuing, keeping his gaze as if that would make him understand.

 “If your brother is ever brought into custody, he won’t hesitate to tell the police everything,” Enji said.

“Everything, our family history, including you, would be brought out into the open. It would destroy me utterly, my reputation, my standing, my position as a hero, all of it. There is no way I would be allowed to keep even a fraction of my power, and I would very likely be taken into custody myself.”

Natsuo frowned. Only thinking of yourself, as usual.

“That is only what would happen to me,” Enji said, as if he had heard his son’s thought. “You would not escape unscathed either. Shouto would become a ward of the state, for one, and you, Fuyumi and your mother would find yourself under immense scrutiny. Our family history would be laid bare for the world to see, and if you have managed to live away from our name so far, you would never be able to again. Your every move would be analysed, picked apart by the vultures of the media. Would you be able to handle that?”

Natsuo hardly dared to breath, hanging on his father’s words. He hadn’t thought of that. He had been so happy to learn that Touya was alive, even as a villain, that he had not considered what would happen if the world learned, too.

“So while I am unspeakably angry at you and your brothers- yes, Shouto too, even if he is too young to understand his actions- I am not going to hurt you,” Enji said. “I will never hurt you, you or your brothers and sister, or your mother, ever again. I am angry, but not because you ‘went behind my back’. I’m angry because it is a stupid, reckless, thoughtless, childish action, and I would have thought you both have more sense than this.”

That stung, and Natsuo felt angry tears rush to his eyes again, for the sheer dismissive, disappointed tone in Enji’s voice.

More than anything, Natsuo felt a sting of hurt that Enji considered that there had apparently been a level of sense to begin with. That must be a new record, he thought, going lower than he thought the bar had been set.

He almost didn’t catch Enji’s next words, caught up in self-deprecation as he was. “However,” he heard, startling him.

“I understand why you did it, and I would be a hypocrite if I did not,” Enji said. When Natsuo gaped at him in confusion, he elaborated, “You were doing what you thought was best for Shouto. In that respect, we are all of us apparently more alike than we thought.”

Natsuo bristled at the insinuation, but couldn’t think of a good enough retribution to it.

“Maybe,” he replied, lamely.

Enji raised an eyebrow at that.

Natsuo was too tired to keep arguing. If Enji wasn’t going to burn him to cinders, then he decided he was just going to go with the flow.

He frowned. After all this, there was one thing that Enji didn’t seem to care about.

“So…do you want to know where they are?” Natsuo asked.

Enji stared at him for a long moment, until Natsuo regretted having asked. If he was going to demand they march right over to Hawks apartment, he wouldn’t have to worry about Enji killing him. Touya would do it himself for having let the cat out of the bag so soon.

He was saved by Enji’s reply. “No,” he answered eventually.

Natsuo felt his mouth drop open in shock again.

Enji raised an eyebrow again, almost challenging as he asked, “I trust that he is at least not with the League?”

Dumbfounded, Natsuo could only shake his head mutely.

“Then I’ll leave them to their reunion,” Enji decided. “Tell your brother that I give him permission to keep Shouto for one day, and then I expect him to be returned. You can arrange that yourselves, since I hardly expect him to come here himself.”

“Would you want him to?” Natsuo blurted out, surprising himself even as he did so.

Enji, surprisingly, actually seemed to consider it, if only for a moment. “For the destruction it would cause, no,” he answered. “Neither of us are ready to face it, I suspect. Fighting in the street is one thing, but I doubt he wants to acknowledge who he is. When he does, he will want to make a scene, to publicly disgrace me. Your mother’s house isn’t fully finished yet, so I would prefer to keep this one intact for at least a while until then.”

He suddenly frowned at Natsuo as though a thought had struck him.

“Is your mother aware of this at all?” he asked.

Natsuo shook his head again. Unable to look at Enji, he lowered his gaze to the floor, biting his lip.

“No,” he answered. “I told him he should tell her, because she would really want to know he’s alive, but he refused. I made him promise he would at least think about it, but I don’t think he wants to. She would, though. If she can forgive you, she can forgive him, even if he’s a villain. Even if he’s killed people, mom would forgive him. She would say it’s not his fault.”

He turned his head again, tiredly. “Even if I think it’s your fault, she doesn’t,” he said. “You hurt nii-san so bad he turned into a villain, so he went from Touya to Dabi. But even so, mom would still hug him, and forgive him, just like she has with you.”

He blinked slowly, the exhaustion of arguing suddenly catching up to him all at once, leaving him feeling utterly drained.

“We really are a messed-up family,” he said tonelessly.

There was little Enji could say to that, and so the room fell into silence.

“We are,” a gentle, feminine voice said, softly. “But we’re trying to change, and that’s what important. Now, if you’re all done, would you like some tea? Your throats are probably sore now, and I think you could do with it.”

The men looked up to see Fuyumi, tears in her eyes but smiling at them happily.

“That would be good, yes,” Enji said. He got to his feet slowly, his joints protesting at having been still for so long.

Reaching down, he held a hand out to Natsuo.

“Come on, son,” he said.

Natsuo stared at his hand for a long time, then, hesitantly, accepted it.

Enji drew him up and into an embrace. With his other arm, he reached out to Fuyumi, who flung herself towards them happily.

The three of them stood there like that for a long time. The house was silent, but for once, it felt almost peaceful, like the first rays of sun coming out after long rain.

Natsuo felt as though the ground had been ripped from his feet, or that he stood on the edge of a precipice. He had no idea what was going to happen next, and it terrified him.

With his father and sister’s arms around him, he resolved to give up. Family was messy, and his family even more so.

He was dreading having to tell Touya what had happened, but it could wait a day at least. From then on, he could only hope, like Rei and Fuyumi did, that everything would somehow turn out all right.

Chapter Text

Across the city, Shouto was blissfully oblivious to the argument surrounding him.

He had spent the day sitting on the sofa with a controller in his hands, staring at the game on Hawk’s frankly enormous TV with an enraptured, deeply focused expression, and had only been enticed away to eat.

Touya had ordered pizza again, waving away Hawk’s chiding by saying that it was new to Shouto, and that it wouldn’t kill them to have it a few days in a row.

“I don’t care what you’re eating,” Hawks had replied. “Just pay me back, man. The delivery guy is starting to look at me funny.”

“Sucks to be you,” Touya had replied unapologetically, and handed Shouto another slice.

The excitement had worn him out eventually, which led to the current situation.

Hawks returned from the shower and stared at the sight he found. Touya was lying across his couch, which was hardly a rare occurrence, though there were usually more bloodstains involved.

What was new was the sight of the child in his arms, peacefully asleep on Touya’s chest with no care in the world.

He couldn’t see Touya’s face from the angle he was standing at, and almost didn’t want to.

“If you wake him up, I’ll kill you, Birdie.”

Touya’s voice was soft, but his words were deadly serious. Hawks made his retreat, going into the kitchen to grab a beer, and came back in soundlessly. He sank down into the beanbag chair in the corner and took a long sip.

He didn’t have siblings. Growing up as he did, his childhood had been cut abruptly short by his training, and so while most children were learning cursive and algebra and how to long jump, he was taught to wield a knife, how to get out of a chokehold, and how to incapacitate without killing.

His only reprieve had been going to school, where he had met Touya. They seemed to be drawn to each other, something in each other’s manner saying that they were kindred souls, that they knew what it was to be living tools.

They kept to an unspoken pact not to talk about their lives. It was enough to know that someone knew, that they both understood without saying that there were things that didn’t need to be said.

They had been the closest thing to each other’s best friends, until one day Touya did not come to school, nor the day after, until he was just gone, without explanation. Keigo had wondered if perhaps he had moved, but without any contact details, he was at a loss.

His own training was soon ramped up, and so he gradually forgot, pushing away all thoughts of friendship and camaraderie in the force of his orders, focusing first on rising through the ranks until he stood at the top and found himself with a name, a reputation and an agency at his command at the age of 22.

He had expected that he would be asked to spy at some point. Why else would his name be erased, living under his hero name and all details about his life redacted if not entirely erased? It was what he had spent his life preparing for.

Nothing could have prepared him for Touya. Now Dabi, far from the young redheaded boy he had known so long ago.

In a way, he was glad to finally have an answer. He had thought about Touya occasionally through the years, wondering idly what had happened to him in the way that children do, but he had never given it any serious thought.

Touya had recognised him immediately. It wasn’t difficult, Hawks thought. After all, even with the sheer number of quirks around, there weren’t that many people with brilliant red wings.

“What happened to you?” he had asked. “I always wondered why you left. I figured you’d moved house or something. I would have looked you up in the phone book or something, but I couldn’t find you, then I remembered your dad was crazy strict, so I guess you wouldn’t have been.”

Dabi had grinned at him in a slow, terrifyingly mad manner. A Cheshire cat smile, Hawks’ brain had supplied, shining blue eyes and all.

“Oh, he was,” he had replied. “We kind of had a fight. I got real mad, and burnt myself all over. So I left.”

Hawk’s had stared him down at that. “And became a villain.”

Dabi laughed. “Yeah, and became a villain. It’s real good fun. You should try it, birdie.”

He had known what Hawks was doing from the beginning.

“So, you got trained up to be a perfect little hero, and now they’ve sent you to spy on me. Good luck with that, birdie.”

Still the same nickname. It was almost comforting, in a way.

It had started out simple. “We want you to infiltrate the League,” they had said. “We need inside information on them, and you’re the best we have.”

Hawks hadn’t meant to get caught up in it like this. Dabi was supposed to be a faceless enemy, just like Shigaraki. Hawks could manage to hate Shigaraki and the rest of them, if only because he was told to.

He couldn’t hate Touya. He knew what it was like to want to rise up against the ones training him, using the excuse that he had to get better, faster, stronger, perfect. He knew what it felt like to try and sleep with a body covered in bruises and no better prospect than another day of the same.

Unlike Touya, his trainers did at least know when to stop, to let him rest (force him to rest, sometimes, when the night grew late and he was still standing in front of a punching bag, sweat dripping down his face and feathers embedded in the walls all around him), but he knew that Touya had gone through far worse.

And so the lines had blurred. Somewhere along the line, Takami Keigo had looked around him and realised that he truly didn’t want to be a hero. He liked the praise, the cries of his name, the children clamouring for them to sign his backpacks, but their cries soon became annoying.

Why did he have to (literally) swoop in and save them, time and time again? 90% of the entire population had quirks. Couldn’t they ever think for themselves? Why was their first thought to call for the heroes and let them sort it out, and them blame them for the destruction they caused?

He began to understand why some heroes preferred to stay out of the limelight. He went on TV and laughed and joked, saying flippantly “I just want a world where heroes have time to relax”, and everyone laughed.

“It’s just his image,” they said. “Look, he’s so young, and with his own agency already. He doesn’t really mean it, he’s such a hard worker. At this rate, Endeavor will have to keep an eye out!”

As if he wanted to be anything like Endeavor. He had listened to Touya’s story with a growing unease as the villains’s words seemed to confirm things he had started to suspect already.

He wasn’t joking. He did want a world where heroes could relax, but more than that, he wanted a world where they weren’t even needed at all. Not a world without villains, because there would always be villains, but a world where people were not quite so quick to rely on others instead of sorting out their problems out on their own.

He admired the kids. Midoriya was focused, if entirely without a sense of self-preservation, but he was driven. Bakugou clearly had some kind of anger management issue going on, but his sheer arrogance and spite was admirable in its own way, and it wasn’t as though he was the only hero who let themselves get carried away.

Then there was Shouto. Everything that Touya was not, and yet Hawks could see the same hatred in their eyes, the single-minded desire to prove their father wrong, to go beyond his influence and make a name for themselves on their own.

Youngest and oldest, on opposite sides.

Hawks had asked Touya why he hadn’t hurt Shouto during the training camp, why he hadn’t tried harder to kidnap him when they had taken Bakugou.

Touya had simply shrugged. “It wasn’t the right time,” he had said.

When Hawks had questioned him on what the right time would be, Touya had dismissed him.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” was all he answered.

Hawks had realised that was as much answer as he was going to get, and let the matter drop.

Playing both sides was interesting to start with. He got a thrill over the danger of it, the fear of being found out. He and Touya began an elaborate double-bluff, acting like perfect strangers in public as they slowly rediscovered each other in private.

The trouble was, the longer Hawks spent around him, and around the League, the more he began to see the hypocrisy on both sides. His superiors only wanted knowledge, inside info on plans and schemes and their nefarious deeds, so they could thwart each one and pat themselves on the back afterwards.

For their part, the League didn’t much care what information he fed back to the heroes. Whatever they came up with, it would be easy enough to make another plan, and as with any espionage Hawks could never be entirely certain whether the information he managed to learn was legitimate, or whether he was no more than a little marionette, replaying his orders like a robot, dragged from side to side.

He was prepared for this, obviously. It was almost inevitable that he would get jaded at some point. They had warned him against it, making him go through extensive psychological training in order to resist whatever could be thrown at him, and yet it happened anyway.

If he was romantically inclined, he would blame it all on Touya, but that wasn’t it. He wasn’t some blushing virgin, pining over his childhood friend and throwing away everything to be with him. Nor were either of them remotely monogamous, at least at first. Plenty of both heroes and villains were willing to throw away their morals for a good lay, and neither of them were any different.

It was just easier to turn to each other, in the end. Touya didn’t entirely agree with the League, and had made sure Shigaraki knew it. The man had been fine with it, saying that as long as they could work together it really didn’t matter what they thought of each other.

Hawks knew they were planning something big, but he was being kept frustratingly out of the loop. He didn’t think Touya had let anything on, but Shigaraki was nothing if not paranoid, so perhaps his suspicion had just won out.

“Stop it, Birdie. I can hear you thinking from here. It sounds painful.”

Hawks looked up to see Touya gazing at him laconically. Shouto was still blissfully asleep on him, his little hands curled into the fabric of Touya’s shirt (Hawks’ shirt, actually), while Touya kept one arm protectively around him, the other pillowed behind his head.

“It’s nothing,” he replied automatically

Touya raised an eyebrow. “Bullshit. Spill.”

Hawks looked away and took a long sip of beer before sighing deeply. He suddenly wanted a cigarette. He wasn’t much of a smoker, but he had been curious enough from Touya’s habit to try it himself, and although he hadn’t taken it up regularly there was still a relaxation from the nicotine hitting his bloodstream that was hard to beat.

“I’m just tired,” he said.

“Poor birdie, one day with a kid and you’re beat. Some hero you are.”

Hawks shot him a scathing look. “That’s not what I meant.”

Touya returned his stare. “I’m not your therapist, but you’re a pain if you’ve got something on your mind, so spill.”

Hawks sighed again. “I said, I’m just tired. Of all of it.”

Touya narrowed his eyes. “So you’re getting cold feet, that it?”

Hawks shook his head. “More that I’m not sure I ever had warm feet to begin with.”

He slouched down in the beanbag and stared at the ceiling. “I’m bored of this,” he said. “You’ve got something cooking up, probably gonna bomb the whole city or something, and I’m supposed to drill you for it, then go spill it to the bosses, who won’t even do anything themselves, but I’ll still be expected to take you down. Then Shigaraki will plan something else, we’ll stop him, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. When does it end?”

Touya gave him an unimpressed look. “Welcome to life, kid. Only took you till now to realise,” he said unsympathetically.

“Shut up. I’m a hero, I’m allowed to have a crisis of faith occasionally.” Hawks turned his head to Touya, judging.

“At least you have a personal goal,” he said. “You just wanna take down your dad, and honestly that’s something I can get behind. But the rest of them…it’s just annoying. “Look.”

He set his can down and reached for the abandoned game case, holding it up and staring at it. Midoriya glared determinedly out from the cover, yelling as usual.

He still believed that the world could be saved. All of them, the kids, hadn’t yet become jaded adults, still full of childish hopes and dreams that being a hero would help them save people and make the world a better place.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they had grown up in families, whether good or bad. They had someone who read them bedtime stories, told them that they could become anything they wanted to be, and who loved them and worried for them.

Hawks had had that once, and it had been taken away from him. So had Touya. Now they were both bitter adults, turned cynical and scathing.

Was it better to have had innocence and lost it, or to have never had it at all? It was a question philosophers had asked forever, and one that would remain perpetually unanswered.

“Your point, birdie?”

Hawks realised he hadn’t actually made his point, and flung the case down. “Nothing. I’m just being melodramatic,” he said.

“Feathers in a ruff?” Touya’s voice was almost teasing.

Hawks chose to ignore him, instead flexing his wings and settling into a more comfortable position.

“It’s late. You should probably put the kid to bed or something,” he said.

Touya looked down at Shouto, a smile rising to his unconsciously. “I suppose. God, how long has it been?” he murmured.

He stroked a hand along Shouto’s back, until the boy’s eyes began to flutter open.

“Don’t wanna bath,” he mumbled.

“Tough. Up you get, brat,” Touya said fondly.

Shouto grumbled childishly, pushing himself up on Touya’s chest and rubbing his eyes with tiny fists.

Hawks listened vaguely as Touya bathed him, hearing Shouto’s childish whining when he inevitably got shampoo in his eyes, followed by Touya’s admonishing reply.

It was so domestic, he thought. He hadn’t exactly ever wanted siblings, but hearing the two brothers’ casual conversation made his chest twinge in a way he couldn’t put a word to.

He came back into the lounge a while later, t-shirt still damp in places.

“He’s asleep,” he said. “I gave him your All Might plush. I don’t wanna know why you have one, but he’s keeping it.”

Hawks merely nodded in reply. “S’fine.”

Touya raised an eyebrow again. “You sure you’re ok, birdie?”

It was the closest to concern he ever showed, and Hawks decided to roll with it.

“No,” he answered. “I don’t know. Apparently planning and carrying out a child kidnapping has made me revaluate my priorities.”

Touya came over to stand above him, peering down with a squinted expression.

“How drunk are you?” he asked curiously.

“Not enough,” Hawks answered.

“Well, you’re not getting plastered with Sho here,” Touya told him. “Go take a shower and contemplate your life like a little emo bird.”

Hawks glared at him. “It’s way too early to sleep. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not four.”

Touya stared back at him. “I didn’t say you had to sleep after.”

Hawks gave him an arched look. “Gonna join me?”

“In your dreams. I already went. Sho soaked me enough already.”

Hawks sighed deeply. “Fiiiine.”

He heaved himself up from the beanbag, struggling slightly as he tried to balance his wings, wobbling as the weight threatened to drag him back down, then stood.

Maybe the hot water would do him good.

“Will you dry my wings?” he asked.

Touya waved a hand. “If you’re good. Shoo.”

He gave him a lazy smirk as Hawks rolled his eyes.

“Yes, dad,” he drawled.

Touya’s muffled swearing as he fell backwards into the beanbag followed him out of the room.

With the water falling over him, Hawks let his mind wander.

Endeavor was going to be furious when he found out. The thought of the man’s anger should have sent fear or at least guilt through Hawks, and yet somehow all he could muster was a sense of vague curiosity.

The ensuing fight between him and Touya, now, that would be interesting.

He came back into the lounge shirtless, his wings dripping on the carpet. Touya scoffed at him.

“Scruffy birdie,” he said, seeing him. “Sit.”

Hawks did as instructed, flopping on the floor in front of Touya.

He felt the heat of the man’s palms against his wings absently, like being wrapped in a blanket. It was soothing, and he felt his eyes slipping shut as he lay there.

“Oy, don’t go to sleep on me, birdie,” he heard Touya mutter.

He mustered the energy to roll over. Weighing the options of sleeping on the floor, the prospect of a bed finally won out, and he got to his feet.

A thought occurred to him. “Does Sho have nightmares?” he asked.

Touya’s mouth twisted. “Yes,” he said, gritted. “But he’s not likely to wake us up if he does. He never did, even though I told him he should.”

His eyes flashed with anger.

Hawks didn’t know what to say to that.

Touya checked on him, returning to their room with a far softer look than Hawks had ever seen.

“Fast asleep,” he said.

Hawks quirked a twisted smile. “What’s it like, having siblings?” he asked.

Touya shot him a sideways glance. “Ask someone from a normal family,” he answered.

Hawks shrugged. “Just wondered.”

Touya sighed. “Fuyu liked to mother us, Natsu was a brat. Sho was the baby. So in any other family we would have been normal. But we weren’t, so we aren’t. End of. Now go to sleep, Keigo.”

He only used Hawks’ name when he was truly serious, or angry. Hawks took the hint, and turned the light off.

“Y’know, your dad may be crazy, but you turned out all right,” he said in the darkness.

“Really,” Touya muttered.

“Not in the slightest. You’re totally messed up, and I hate you.”

“Really.”

“Mm-hmm. You’re making me a villain,” Hawks said seriously.

“Keigo?”

“mm?”

“I thought I said if you woke Sho up I’d kill you. Go. To. Sleep.”

“And your dad’s gonna kill us both when he finds out. You go to sleep.”

Touya cracked an eye open at that. “I’m looking forward to it. But if you don’t shut up right now it won’t be a problem.”

“Fine, fine.”

They eventually settled down. Touya’s breaths soon deepened into the calm of sleep, though Keigo took far longer, lying staring at the ceiling.

He turned his head to watch him, looking at the long lashes lying against the burnt skin of his face. In the darkness, it was barely visible, only the gleam of his staples shining in the faint light coming from the slit in the curtains.

Here he was, lying in bed with the enemy, with a kidnapped child asleep in his spare bedroom, and whose father could destroy them both with barely a thought. Hawks had seen him fight the Nomu. The thought of that anger levelled at him was unthinkable, and yet he couldn’t help imagining it anyway.

Maybe he was just being morbid. Midoriya would probably think this was the chance for a family reunion, that Touya would meet Enji and somehow reverse the damage of a lifetime.

It was a strange thought, and for a moment, Hawks wished he could go back to his childhood, to those precious few months when he and Touya had been so close, before all this.

It was useless dwelling on what might have been, though. They were here, it had happened, and all they could do was wait for Enji to find out, if he didn’t already know.

Hawks spared a thought for Natsuo, and wondered idly if he was alright.

I guess we’re all just as messed up as each other.

He tried to push the thoughts away and clear his mind. It didn’t work, but he closed his eyes, focusing on the heat of Touya’s body next to his. That, at least, was a constant, at least for now. If this was going to be ripped away from him, then he would make it count while it lasted.

He turned on his side, lifting his wing to cover them both, and shut out the world for the night.

Chapter Text

Touya woke up to the sound of his phone bleeping at him. From beside him, Hawks gave a sleepy murmur, burrowing into his wings with a tiny frown.

Groaning, Touya reached out and grabbed the offending thing, squinting as the light from the screen blinded him.

It was a voicemail. Touya groaned again. It was probably just Shigaraki, whispering nonsense as he always did, rambling about the next stage of their plan. Occasionally it would be followed by an apology from Kurogiri, but the void-faced man tended not to interact with him if he could help it, and Touya liked it that way.

There was only one other person who had his number.

Carefully, so as not to disturb Hawks, Touya slid out of bed and stalked silently into the lounge.

He opened up the message and waited while it went through his options, before pressing play.

“Hi, Bro. Uh, I tried calling you but you didn’t pick up, but I gotta tell you something. Please don’t hate me for this.”

Natsuo’s voice sounded scared, and Touya’s heart thundered in his chest until his brother spoke again.

“I’m just gonna say it. Dad found out about everything. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to, it’s just…he was home and I didn’t think he would be and I just freaked and…told him. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I get if you hate me now.”

There was a deep breath, as if Natsuo was gearing up for what he had to say.

“Uh, you’re probably not gonna believe this, but he didn’t freak. He was mad, but I’m still alive and not crisped, so I guess he was ok with it? Anyway, he, uh, he said he wants Sho back by the end of the day. I guess I’ll come get him? So just, uh, I guess call me when you get this. Just, please don’t hate me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

His voice got quieter and quieter as he spoke, until he was so choked with tears and fear that he cut himself off.

The message ended abruptly, replaced by the coolly electronic voice running through the list of options.

Touya pressed the button to delete it, letting the phone slip from his hand and hit the plush carpet.

He glanced at the clock. It was still early, probably too early for Natsuo to be awake, although knowing him he likely hadn’t slept with worry.

He heard the faint sound of footsteps, and turned to see Shouto padding into the lounge, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Nii-san? I heard Natsu-nii, did he come over?”

“No, Sho. He just had something he wanted to say, that’s all. What are you doing up?” Touya reached down and grabbed his phone, slipping it into the pocket of his sweatpants as Shouto came up to him, leaning into his legs and wrapping an arm around them for balance.

With his other arm, he clutched the All Might plush to himself tightly, and the sight made something in Touya’s chest clench. Like that, he looked like any normal child, a glimpse into what could have been.

Shouto yawned widely, tugging Touya’s leg. “m’thirsty,” he mumbled.

“You have water by your bed,” Touya told him.

Shouto looked up at him with a faintly disgusted expression, frowning. “S’old,” he said. “It’s gone yucky.”

Touya sighed. “Alright, brat. What do you want?”

“Milk.”

Touya looked down at him sternly. Shouto returned his stare, clearly not contributing anything else and waiting patiently until his demand was met.

Touya caved. “Fine. Go and get dressed. Are you hungry?”

Shouto nodded.

“Good. Go and wake birdbrain up and tell him I’m making pancakes.”

Shouto’s eyes lit up, and he ran out of the room eagerly.

Touya busied himself with the routine of cooking, refusing to think about Natsuo’s message.

After a minute or two, Shouto came back in, Hawks following behind.

“Keigo-nii wants pancakes too,” Shouto informed Touya. “But he said he’ll only eat them if he gets to, uh, kiss the cook?”

Touya whirled round with a horrified expression, almost splattering them all in batter.

“What the hell, birdie?”

Hawks stifled a laugh, mussing Shouto’s hair and making the boy glare at him.

“Morning, hot stuff. You heard kiddo. If I’m getting up at a ridiculous hour, I expect compensation.”

“The hell you do. I’m not having you corrupt my baby brother.”

“Your baby brother is sixteen years old, and you should see the things his class chat sends to each other. Man, kids these days start early!”

Shouto looked back and forth between the two men, utterly confused.

“Nii-san, I’m sorry. Keigo-nii told me it would make you happy. Are you not happy?”

Touya turned to Shouto, ignoring Hawks. “You make me happy, Sho. This brat can go f-uh, screw himself for all I care, and starve, too.”

“Oh.” Shouto didn’t seem to know how to take that, and looked down for a moment, before peering up again.

“Then, can I have his, and with jam, please?”

Hawks dissolved into laughter, and knelt down, drawing Shouto into his arms.

“Y’know, I never liked kids, but you are just too cute, man. Does he have to turn back? Could we keep him like this, d’you think?”

“No. Sho, get the plates out, please.”

Touya’s reply was curt, and he turned back to the stove with a closed expression.

He cooked in silence, and it wasn’t until the pancakes were ready that Touya seemed to realise the heavy atmosphere, seeing Shouto sitting on the chair quietly, hands clenched around the plush and bringing it to cover his face.

“I’m sorry, Sho, I’m just a bit tired,” Touya lied, sliding the plate in front of him. “I didn’t mean to snap. Hey, what do you want to do today?”

Shouto looked up at him, searching his face for the lie. Touya was a master at hiding his emotions, though, and Shouto was easy to convince, his face relaxing happily as he dug in.

“I just want to be with nii-san,” he said. “And Keigo-nii. He’s fun. He has the game too, and he let me beat him.”

Touya shot a glance to Hawks, who smiled.

“Did he?”

Shouto nodded. “I killed all the bad guys!”

His face fell momentarily. “Except you. I was s’posed to stop you, but I didn’t.”

He seemed to remember something then, and held Touya’s gaze seriously. “You have to promise not to be mean to any of my friends again, nii-san. Even-“ he bit his lip, thinking, -“even Bakagou. He’s even more mean, but maybe if you’re not mean to him again, he’ll stop being mean too. Especially to Deku. I like Deku. I want to be big again so I can be his friend again.”

Touya and Hawks shared a glance, both heavily doubting that.

“Yeaaahh, it might take more than that, kiddo,” Hawks said. “That kid’s a lost cause. But tell you what, why don’t you write a letter to Izuku, so you can tell him everything you want to do when you’re big again?”

Touya gave him an incredulous look, but Shouto beamed. “Can I do one for mommy too? Mommy says she likes the letters I write her, and she keeps them all. She showed me when I gave her the crane daddy helped me make.”

His face fell slightly. “But, the letters I wrote when I was big were much better. I don’t think I can write that good now. Do you think Deku will mind if it’s not as good?”

“I’m sure he won’t, kiddo,” Hawks reassured him. “You’re his best friend. Everyone likes getting things from their best friend. Whatever you write him, he’ll love it.”

And add it to his frankly alarming hero-related collection, he didn’t add.

“Nii-san should write a letter to mommy too!” Shouto piped up, innocently.

Touya tried to stifle his shock. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sho,” he said.

Shouto pouted at him. “But mommy likes my letters, and Fuyu-nee and Natsu-nii go see her more than I do, so you should write her a letter too,” he said.

He lapsed into thought, holding the plush out in front of him and staring at it.

“I don’t know if mommy knows that you’re a villain,” he said quietly. “Natsu-nii didn’t even know you were alive.”

He seemed to think for a moment.  “I don’t remember being big, but if it’s really been years since you left, then maybe mommy doesn’t know you’re alive either,” he said slowly. “She said she doesn’t watch the news, but I think she knows that daddy was in a fight and has a scar now. But I don’t know if she knows that you’re alive.”

He stared at the plush, running his hands over the plastic eyes and the trademark grin picked out in stitches.

“Shouto, why don’t you go sit down in the lounge,” Touya said eventually, his voice flat. 

Shouto immediately obeyed, slipping off the chair silently.

Sensing the mood, Hawks gathered up the plates and piled them by the sink.

“I’ll be in our room,” he said.

Touya nodded at him absently.

He took a moment to compose himself, then made his way into the lounge.

Shouto sat on the sofa, his knees drawn up to his chest and clutching the plush. He looked up at Touya with a heart-wrenching expression.

“I think we need to talk, Sho,” Touya said. He knelt down in front of him, holding out his hands towards him. Shouto refused, shaking his head and backing into the couch and shaking his head, sensing the mood.

Touya sighed and sat back. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to think.

How could he explain his life to a four year old?

“Shouto, there’s so much you don’t know,” he began, hesitantly.

He had regretted the path his life had taken many, many times, but now, seeing the look on his little brother’s face, he wished so fervently that he could take it all back, to the night everything had changed.

Touya suddenly realised something. While the memory of that night was imprinted on his mind and would be for the rest of his life, there had been twelve years for it to soften and blur for the rest of his family. For Shouto as he was now, however, that night was likely to be fresh. He did a rough calculation in his head, realising that for Shouto, it was likely that only a few weeks had gone by, perhaps a handful of months at the most.

“Shouto, I know you probably don’t want to think about it, but what exactly happened the night I…left?” he asked.

Shouto’s face fell, and tears gathered in his eyes. For a moment, Touya thought that he wouldn’t answer, but then he spoke, slowly.

“You were at school all day with Natsu-nii and Fuyu-nee,” he said. “Daddy was at work, so I stayed with mommy all day. It was really nice, and I was really happy.”

He took a deep breath, and blinked rapidly, clutching the plush. “Then you got home before daddy did, so mommy let us all play together, just until daddy got home. We played knights, and mommy and Fuyu-nee made snowflakes for us. You were the bad dragon who tried to melt the castle.”

Touya remembered. That brief window had been the only time they could spend together, before Enji got home and forced their separation again.

As Shouto spoke, Touya let the memory overtake him.

“ Oh no, he’s gonna melt the castle! Save us, prince Shouto!” Fuyumi cried.

“No! G et back, mister dragon! I’ll save you, nee-san!” Shouto had giggled, charging forward and hitting Touya with a paper sword Fuyumi had made out of origami.

“Argh! The prince has bested me. I give up. The castle is yours, fair maiden. I am dead.”

Touya had dropped dramatically to the floor, closing his eyes and lolling his tongue out, grasping his chest.

“Yay, we won!” Shouto had clapped his hands, and Fuyumi had cheered. Natsuo, as the guard, had rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same.

“All right, that’s enough. Your father will be home soon. Touya, have you finished your homework? You need to finish it before school tomorrow,” Rei said, coming into the room with a smile.

Touya sat up with a scowl. “Yes, mom. Don’t worry, I’ll all done. One thing he can’t get mad at me for.”

Rei had sighed sadly. “Touya, please, we’ve talked about this. Just do what he asks, please. Once you get into UA you can transfer into whichever course you want, but please just go along with it until then.”

Touya’s scowl had deepened, but seeing the look on Rei’s face he had relented, standing up and walking over to her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Ok, mom, I promise. I’ll play nice until then. Do you need help with dinner?”
“It’s fine. Just tidy up the room for me, please.”

They had busied themselves with cleaning, hiding all signs of playing, of being in the same room as each other.

Enji had arrived at six o’clock on the dot, for once on time. Rei had just finished setting the dishes on the table, and Fuyumi went to greet him, taking his briefcase and jacket and hanging them up in the genkan.

“Did you have a good day at work, father?” she asked as they took their seats.

“Yes,” he answered. “For once, there was little going on.”

“I’m glad,” Rei said softly. “Will you be home this time tomorrow? Shouto has been working on something, and he’d like to show you.”

Enji looked over at his youngest son, who looked back at him shyly. “I’ve been training, like you said. I can make a flower now,” he said. “I’ve been trying to make them with both my hands, but the ice melts too quickly, so I can only do it with my flames.”

Enji rolled his eyes. “Rei, I thought you’ve been working with him,” he said. “He needs to learn to balance them.”

“He’ll get there,” she answered. “He’s only four. Give him time.”

“He’s already four,” Enji countered. “A simple flower should be easy for him.”

Rei’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t reply, backing down as always.

“The rest of you, how are your studies?” Enji asked instead.

“I got the best score in my class!” Fuyumi piped up. “The teacher said I did really well, and that if I try really hard I could take her place one day! I’d really like that. I want to be a teacher.”

Enji nodded. “Natsuo?”

The boy shrugged. “I passed my test. There are football tryouts after school soon. May I go?”

“I suppose,” he said. “Just don’t expect me or your mother to attend games. It would be disrupting.”

Natsuo nodded, sinking back into his chair silently.

Enji turned his attention to his eldest son. “Touya, you have an entrance exam test next week. I trust you’re fully prepared.”

Touya held back a sneer. “Yes, father. ‘fully prepared’, I promise.”

Enji’s eyes narrowed. “This is a serious matter. You need to take it as such. I expect you to place at the top.”

Touya clenched his jaw. “I will, father. I’ll make you proud, don’t worry. I’ll get into the hero course.”

And transfer out of it as soon as possible, he thought. Just you wait, I won’t do what you want for me, never.

“Good. We’ll train after dinner. Your flashfire still needs some work.”

Touya rolled his eyes. Enji stared him down, unimpressed.

“Do not take this lightly, Touya,” he said. “You may not understand it, but the hero course is exclusive. I need you to be the best out there. You can’t expect to become a hero without putting the work in.”

Touya’s mouth twisted again, and he set his bowl down, eyes blazing.

“And what if it’s not good enough, what then? What if there’s someone out there who’s better than me? What happens if I fail?”

Enji looked at him calmly. “That’s what training is for. So you don’t fail. Do you expect to?”

Touya shook his head angrily. “No. But what if I don’t want to be a hero.”

“What else would you be?”

“I don’t know,” Touya groaned. “Something else. Anything.”

Enji took another bite of rice, chewing slowly before replying. “Well, if all you have is fanciful ideas, then you will do as I say. If you are going to be insolent, the least you could do is have a plan for it. Now, you are disrupting dinner. Sit down and finish eating, and then we will train. Clearly I have been far too lax with you.”

Touya had planned to retaliate, but seeing the looks on his sibling’s and mother’s faces, he had relented, resigning himself to the fire in his eyes.

Later, in the dojo, he had faced his father, fists clenched in readiness.

“The entrance exam is in a month,” he said.

Enji had raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“I have a deal,” Touya said.

Enji’s eyes narrowed. “I told you to stop being insolent,” he said. “Ready.”

“Hear me out,” Touya insisted.

Enji rolled his eyes. “Say it, then. Get it off your chest.”

Touya clenched his jaw, anger rising in him. Fighting to keep his voice calm, he said, “I’ll take the entrance exam for the hero course. But I want to try for the other classes too. And other schools, too. Normal schools, without hero training.”

Enji seemed to consider it. “You will get into UA,” he said.

Touya groaned in frustration. “But if I don’t?”

“You would have to deliberately attempt not to. That would be irresponsible and quite frankly stupid. You will aim for the hero course.”

Touya felt his anger rising, and couldn’t contain it any more.

“I don’t want to be a hero!” he yelled. “I don’t want to go in the hero course. I don’t want to go to UA, I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Enji hadn’t so much as batted an eyelid. “That’s just the pressure of the exam getting to you. You will go to UA, you will get into the hero course, and you will become a hero.”

Touya had sneered at him then. “Just like you,” he said. “A ‘hero’.”

“That is enough,” Enji said. “I have tolerated your disobedience for long enough. Stop talking and start training. Perhaps if you can manage to win, I will consider it.”

Touya knew a taunt when he heard one, and grinned bitterly. “Fine. If I win, you have to let me try for the other courses, too.”

“Very well. Begin, then.”

Touya did so. He started cautiously, every lesson he had ever had running through his mind. He countered Enji easily to begin with, ducking and dodging smoothly, before beginning his own offensive.

“That’s it, channel your mind,” Enji said. “See, this is where your skills lie. Why would you ever want to do anything else, when this is what you’re capable of?”

The sheer arrogance and pride in those words got to Touya.

He suddenly realised that no matter what he did, no matter how good he was, it would never be enough for his father to see him on his own. He would always be his father’s son, following in his footsteps as a perfect successor.

Even if he won this fight, Enji would never allow him to be anything else. There was no point even trying.

He had stopped, letting his fists hang loosely by his side.

 A flame rushed past him, singing his arm.

“What’s wrong, son?” Enji asked. “Come on, we are not nearly finished. I thought you wanted to win.”

Touya felt a broken laugh bubble up in him.

“What’s the point?” he said. “You won’t let me try. You’re a liar. You wouldn’t let me do what I want, ever.”

“This is pointless,” Enji said. “I keep my word. If you win, I will consider it. But you need to attempt it for that.”

Touya clenched his fists, trying hard not to let tears rise to his eyes.

There really wasn’t any point. Enji would always be stronger than him. He wouldn’t ever let Touya win, so what was the point in trying?

He should just agree. It was only 3 years, and after he graduated, he would be able to do whatever he wanted.

The thought made him frown.

When had he given up?

His fists tightened. Flame burst around his hands.

He wasn’t weak. Enji was right. With that attitude, he wouldn’t win.

He had had enough of this. He could win. He would.

He summoned flames to his hands. Enji saw the light in his eyes, and grinned, darkly.

“There, see, that anger. Use it. Channel it. You might hate me for it now, but you will thank me one day, when you stand at the top.”

Oh, I already hate you, Touya thought.

Enji really didn’t see it. He was so determined to see his children succeed that he didn’t even realise how much Touya hated him. He had started training Shouto, with his perfect blend of quirks, to be his successor, yet he still expected Touya to make up the shortfall of his own failings.

He threw himself into the fight in earnest, turning from defensive to offensive. He barely realised as his flames grew hotter, fueled by his anger and determination to succeed.

He ignored Enji as his words turned from taunts to something close to worry.

“That is enough, Touya. You will overwork yourself at this rate. You need to learn control, not brute force.”
Touya didn’t care. He launched another volley, forcing Enji to dodge. His face drew together in anger, striding towards him.

“That is enough.” He grabbed Touya’s arm, roughly.

“I have changed my mind. Clearly you don’t have enough control to think about your actions. Try taking this seriously instead of hitting out like a child, and I will be more willing to negotiate with you.”

Touya tried to wrench his arm away. “Negotiate? What am I, a business contract? I’m your son!” His voice broke, and he managed to free his arm.

The tears broke free from his eyes, and he blinked them away, hating himself for the weakness.

“Would you ever really let me?” he asked. “You wouldn’t. There’s no point event trying. You only care about me as long as I do what you want. Even Natsu and Fuyumi get to do more than I do.”

“They don’t have the power you do,” Enji said calmly. “You could truly be a hero, if only you put the effort in.”

“I don’t want to be a fucking hero!” Touya had yelled. He lifted his arms, covered in small burns from the attacks he hadn’t managed to dodge.

“Is this what heroes do?” he asked. “Do you even realise how messed up you are?”

“Stop cursing,” Eni said. “This is simply teenage rebellion. You’re being childish, and it’s beneath you. Look, even your siblings think so.”
Touya looked over to the corner of the room, where the rest of their family had been watching. Natsuo’s face was stonily blank, Fuyumi’s wide with shock, though whether at Touya or Enji he didn’t know.

Rei was clutching Shouto in her arms, tears running down her face. Shouto had his face buried in his mother’s shoulder.

“Please make them stop, mommy,” he said.

Touya turned back to his father, his eyes blazing with anger. “Yeah, clearly,” he sneered.

“That is enough!” Enji thundered, flames rising around him. “Why can’t you just behave!”

“WHY SHOULD I!”  Touya screamed back. “You don’t even need me! You have him!” He pointed to Shouto, who turned his head to stare at Touya, his little face white with fear.

“Shouto knows what’s expected of him,” Enji said. “You clearly don’t.”

Touya turned to Shouto. “He’s too young to know better,” he shot back. “Shouto, do you want to be a hero?”

“Touya, stop this,” Rei said, appealing to him. “You’ve said enough. Just calm down. You’re getting too worked up. Please, baby, calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

She looked at Enji, pleading. “Please, Enji, stop this,” she begged. “Touya’s learnt his lesson. Just stop, and all calm down, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

“No, Rei, he hasn’t learnt his lesson,” Enji said. “If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t still be this disobedient.”

Touya let out a broken laugh. He lifted a hand to his arm, letting his flame light up, blue flickering at the edges.

Seeing it, Rei let out a cry. “Touya, no!” She set Shouto down, running over to him, enveloping him in her arms.

“That’s enough, baby, just stop,” she said. “Just do what he says, please. I’ll talk to him,” she whispered.

Touya felt tears run down his face, burning his heated face.

From over his mother’s shoulder, he saw Enji’s face twist with anger. He lifted a hand, and Touya’s mind raced.

Not again. Never, ever again.

He pushed Rei away forcefully, not hearing her cry as she fell.

He took the brunt of Enji’s slap full force, his head snapping to the side with it.

Rei cried out, mixing with Natsuo and Fuyumi. Shouto was sobbing, crying for them to stop.

Touya turned his head back to face Enji, his skin burning from the pain.

“Is this what you want, father?” he asked. “Is this the kind of hero you want me to be? Making mom cry, hitting us, scaring Shouto? Is that what you want him to grow up to do?”

He took a deep breath, facing Enji with fire in his eyes and running across his skin.

“I won’t let you hurt us any more,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind. If I can beat you, right now, then you’ll stop training me. You’ll stop training Shouto until he’s old enough to decide what he wants to do. You won’t ever hurt mom again, and if you do I’ll go right to the police and tell them every single thing you’ve ever done to us. I have enough scars for them to believe me.”

Enji’s face was angrier than he had ever seen. Touya stood his ground, moving to place himself between Enji and Rei.

“NO, Touya, please, stop,” she begged. “This is enough. You’ve made your point.”

“Oh no, he’s made his challenge,” Enji said. “Come on, then, son. You’ve said your piece, now back it up.”

Touya screamed wordlessly and raised his fist. He didn’t feel as his flames burned across his skin, the orange and red slowly whitening into blue.

He didn’t notice as smoke began to rise from his arms. Neither did Enji, too caught up in his anger to notice.

He didn’t notice as a stray flame shot out from him and hit the wall, beginning to smoulder into the wood until a piece fell off to the floor.

He didn’t notice as that little flame started burning merrily away, taking root and spreading slowly.

All he felt was the searing, piercing anger as he lashed out at Enji, who met him head on as he fought more intensely than he ever had before.

He didn’t notice until a piercing scream rent the air.

“STOP IT! ENJI, HE’S BURNING! STOP IT!”

The words didn’t register in either of their minds for a moment, until Enji suddenly sucked in a breath and reeled back, horror spreading across his face.

Touya didn’t notice, only seeing his father step back.

“What, are you out of breath, old man?” he sneered.

“Touya, baby, you need to calm down!” Rei cried.

The smell of burning flesh finally reached Touya. His eyes were fixed on his father’s face, and it wasn’t until he noticed the sheer panic and fear there that he looked down at his arms.

The sight of it unlocked the pain that his anger had been shielding him from, and it hit him full force.

He screamed, high and broken and terrified.

It wouldn’t stop. The flames wouldn’t stop. The more he tried to calm down, the more they raged. His skin was burning, charring, blisters already popping and turning black at the edges, sending the pain even deeper as the heat hit the exposed flesh.

Rei ran to him, holding out her hands andrying futilely to stop him with her quirk. She screamed for Natsuo and Fuyumi to take Shouto and get out, for Enji to call someone, for Touya to stop.

“Mom, it hurts. I can’t stop it, mom,” Touya sobbed through the pain. “I can’t stop it. It hurts, mommy.”

He had fallen at some point, or was the ceiling always that far away? There seemed to be more flames, too, unless that was his eyes darkening with smoke. Would they burn his eyes too, and leave him blind?

He didn’t want to die.

“I don’t want to die, mom.”

“Shh, you’re ok, baby,” she sobbed, sending ice from her palms, melting before it even reached him.

“Your father will get someone,” she said, trying to reassure him.

“No he won’t,” Touya gasped. “He doesn’t care. I’m sorry mom, I didn’t mean it. This is my fault.”

“No it’s not. Don’t speak, baby. This isn’t your fault, but don’t try to talk. Just try and calm down, ok?”

Touya tried to hold on to her voice, tried to do as she said. It was getting hard to think over the pain. His face felt like it was melting, and he couldn’t even feel his arms anymore.  

He couldn’t even feel the heat. Maybe it was working, he thought. Rei continued speaking to him softly, begging him to stay with her, but it was getting fainter.

He couldn’t feel the flames anymore, but he couldn’t really feel anything now. Distantly, he heard Rei screaming, but he couldn’t register it. His eyesight was getting darker, blackness overtaking his vision and narrowing it to the sight of the wood above him. Breathing was getting harder too, smoke filling the air.

That was from his flames, he realised too slowly.

Was he going to die here? Surrounded by flames of his own making, burns covering his skin from his own quirk.

Huh. It seemed too late to worry about now.

He had never really believed it when stories spoke of falling into blackness, but now, fighting for breath against the pain, he could see the appeal.

There didn’t really seem any point in fighting it any longer. He would never be enough for his father, he realised now. Rei and his siblings would be devastated if he died, but they would learn to live without him, he was sure.

He took a breath, shuddering through the pain.

“I love you, mom.”

He didn’t know if Rei was still there, but if he was going to die here, he wanted that to be the last thing he said.

Maybe she replied. Maybe she didn’t. He couldn’t feel anything any more. Even thinking hurt, and so he stopped doing that, too.

Lost in his memory, it was a long time before he registered the feeling of tiny hands tugging at him.

“Nii-san? Nii-san!”

Touya came back to himself forcefully, looking up at Shouto, who relaxed slightly when he met Touya’s eyes.

“I’m ok, Sho,” he murmured.

Shouto didn’t look entirely convinced, but he sat back.

Touya sat up straighter.

As horrible at that night was, it was twelve long years gone. He couldn’t change anything from the past.

But he could, perhaps, change the future.

“I’m ok, Sho,” he repeated.

He stood up, looking down at him.

“I’m ok,” he said again. “You’re ok.”

He looked down at Shouto, and decided once again to throw caution away. Natsuo’s message hadn’t gone from his mind. If he only had one day with Shouto, then he was going to make it count.

“Let’s write a letter for mom,” he said, determinedly.

The beam on Shouto’s face was brighter than his flames could ever be.

Chapter Text

Shouto sat at the kitchen table with a page of blank paper and a determined expression on his face. Hawks had somehow found a set of colouring pencils, which he claimed he hadn’t even known he had, and Shouto was looking them over with a critical eye, as thought it was the most serious decision of his life.

He looked up once, and seeing Touya still with a blank sheet, frowned at him.

“You have to write one too, Touya-nii,” he said seriously. “You promised.”

Touya fervently wished he hadn’t, but instead tried to smile. “I will, Sho. You focus on yours and I’ll write mine, ok?”

Shouto seemed happy with the promise, and settled back to work. He had, unsurprisingly, chosen a red pencil for Rei, with a green one set beside him that could only be for Izuku.

Touya sighed internally and picked up a pen. With Shouto occupied, all he really had to do was keep up appearances and scrawl something.

What would he write, anyway?

Hi mom, sorry I let you believe I was dead for 12 years. I’m alive, but I’m a villain now and my only goal in life is to kill your husband.

Husband? Or ex-husband? He suddenly realised that he didn’t even know if his parents were technically still married or not. Probably, since he doubted Enji would have gone through with a divorce due to the publicity. Then again, he had the money, influence and power to keep his own not-dead status secret, so who knew.

He found himself, not for the first time, contemplating the possibility of not killing him. He still wanted to, obviously, but somehow what used to fill him with righteous anger and elation now gave him a twinge of doubt.

He didn’t for one moment believe that Enji was sincere in his desire to change. He couldn’t even contemplate the idea that the man could ever deserve to be forgiven, let alone believe it.

It wasn’t that that gave him pause. It was the thought of how Shouto and Fuyumi would react. Oh, Fuyumi might understand him, but she had been the oldest, the one to step up to a too-young parental role, and she had had 12 years to make her peace with his death. She would understand, but she, with her determination to see the best in people and the hope for a better future, would never forgive him.

Natsuo would understand. He had always understood. No matter how scared he was to find out the truth about Touya, there had been a flicker of understanding and admiration in his eyes, a sad smile that Touya had made something of himself, however terrible. He would understand, and there would be nothing to forgive.

Shouto would not understand, and he would not forgive. As he was now, he knew nothing, and acting before he returned to normal would destroy him.

As his normal teenaged self, though, Touya had a chance. He followed his little brother’s progress closely, seeing his confidence slowly grow as he learnt to use both halves of his power and begin to stretch out from their father’s oppressive shadow.

He would understand. Whether he would forgive him or not was uncertain, and depended on how much, if at all, he would remember of this once he returned to normal.

It was only Rei, then, who Touya realised he no longer knew. The mother of his memory was of a weak, beaten woman, who had long ago stopped being able to resist her husband and stand up for herself. She had loved him, true, but her fear had consumed her, and they had all paid the price for it. Shouto had grown up without a mother, and Enji had lost all obstacles in his way.

A letter could never address everything Touya felt towards her. It was useless to even try, but somehow he drew the paper closer to himself, his grip on the pen tightening.

Almost unconsciously, he set it down, seeing the first black mark appear.

Hi, mom.

 I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Shouto and Natsu wanted me to, and I guess I’m still stupid enough to do it for them. So here I am, scribbling on the paper because Sho will know if I don’t, and then he’ll be upset with me. He’s my baby brother, so I’m not supposed to make him upset. I’m a nice person that way.

He says he visits you. It seems like they all do. When did that happen? Did he just wake up one day and decided he’d deprived them of you for long enough? Or did one of them, probably Fuyu, sneak out to see you? It’s the only kind of defiance I can imagine her doing.

I don’t even know what I’m writing. I’m only going to burn this as soon as Shouto is distracted. This is stupid.

Shouto has the idea that we’re all going to reconcile and forgive each other, and we’ll all be one happy family.

Of course, he’s four years old right now, so he believes a lot of stupid things. You know that, right? You’ve seen him. He’s tiny.

What was that like? Did it take you back, seeing him scared and scarred again like it was the first time? Did you remember the sound of his screams as you disfigured him for life? He was really lucky not to have gone blind. Difficult to be a hero when you can’t see, but you weren’t thinking about that, were you?

He’s forgiven you, somehow. He doesn’t blame you. He blames him. He’s trying to understand what happened, what drove you to hurt him, and he’s forgiving both of you.

I’ll say it because I know this will never reach you: I don’t. I don’t forgive you, neither of you, and I don’t think I ever will. You chose to hurt him, just as you chose to stand by and do nothing every single time that man hurt us. You chose to hide away and give yourself over to fear, and look where it got us.

I asked Shouto how much he remembers of that night. It’s not much, but I remember all of it. Every single second. The only thing I don’t remember is the end. Were you there, holding me as I burned, or was I just imagining it? I heard you screaming for help, but it was far too late for it.

Why didn’t you do something sooner? You could have taken us and run, and we would have made something work. Sure, it would have difficult, and maybe he would have come after us, but I’d bet anything he would have wanted to avoid a scandal, but other people have managed it, so why couldn’t we? We could have made a life for ourselves, far away from him, and maybe he would have given up eventually. Maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe you wouldn’t have snapped, and none of us would have been hurt. We could all have gone to school and made friends and had sleepovers and days out and holidays and whatever else it is normal families do.

Sometimes, once I woke up, I imagined what it would be like if I had done something instead. Maybe it wasn’t too late. I could have gone to the police and told them everything, and maybe they would have believed me, and we still could have left. Sure, I’d probably still look like this, but maybe it wouldn’t have mattered so much.

 But then I remember that no-one in that hospital- the same one as yours, did you know that?- no-one even knew my name. And I realised that there no way I could go back. I was supposed to be dead, and because of that, I was free. I could do whatever I wanted.

Believe it or not, I didn’t wake up one day and suddenly decide “hey, I’m gonna become a villain.” I said I was free, and I thought maybe things could be better. But then I went outside, and instead of understanding, people looked at me and called me a monster. A freak, hideous, everything you can imagine. No matter what I said, they only saw the burns and the metal holding my skin together, and I realised pretty quickly that there was nothing I could do to stop them. They made up their minds about me the second they saw me, and I would never be able to change it. 

Why is it so easy to turn bad? All you need is one too many rejections. To look around and see that the same people who look up to heroes and call them for help for every single little thing are the ones who made you this way, and they’ll never know what those ‘heroes’ are really like. So you fall in with the wrong people, the people like you, who understand, and you find a place with them. It’s not a nice place, but it’s somewhere you can fall as far as you want to, and no-one can stop you. Because to stop you, they would have to care. And all they care about is their own image. And I looked in a mirror and saw that my image is pretty fucking terrible, so I decided to roll with it.

I started small. I stole, because what else could I do to survive. At first it was only from shops, close to closing time, when it was getting dark and they could look the other way for the poor, scarred homeless kid. But then I got better at it, and it started to get fun. I learnt to use my flames better, because it kept me warm, and it got pretty damn    cold on the streets.

It turns out there’s lot of people like me. Those whose quirks destroy their bodies, or someone else’s, and after one too many accidents they get thrown out and left to fend for themselves. All because we’re not good enough, not clever enough, not acceptable enough to be a hero.

We didn’t ask for our quirks. I didn’t ask to be born as an experiment. You can’t create kids like it’s some kind of mixing paint or shit.

Me, I could understand. Fuyu too, even. One kid, and try again. But to do the same thing again and again until you get the right one, how could you let him do it? If Shouto wasn’t born, would you have done it again until you did?

It’s not like you could answer that. Of course you would have. You never told him no. He wouldn’t have listened anyway.

I want to hate you. I’m going to kill him one day, for everything he’s done. It’s all I’ve thought about for years. But I don’t know what to do about you.

Mainly I’m just angry. Knowing that you were there, just a few floors below me, while I almost died over and over and over, and I bet you didn’t even know. I think I’ll burn him a little more just for that.

Will you hate me, when I kill him? I don’t think you will. You don’t even know who I am. What kind of life do you have in that tiny little room? Do you even know what’s happening in the outside world, or are you drip-fed what your children tell you, in the letters they write you?

Or do you ever see the news, and look at my face, and wonder? Natsuo said he thought he realised a long time ago, but he didn’t know it was true until he saw me in the flesh, what little there is left of it. So tell me, mom, how does it make you feel, seeing the child you thought was dead?

If I was a nicer person, a normal person, I suppose I would understand you. Shouto does. Fuyumi does. I don’t.

I think you’re a coward. You let your own children get hurt, and you did nothing about it. I don’t care what you went through. I went through worse, and you didn’t stop it. You let my father try to kill me, and I’m the one who has to live with it.

It hurts, you know. Most of my nerve endings were burnt off, obviously, but there’s some left, and it fucking hurts. It’s like my skin is always on fire, every second of every day, and it won’t ever stop. I could cut my arms off and it would still hurt, because you can’t just forget that kind of pain.

Can you imagine what it’s like to have staples in your skin, just to hold it together so it doesn’t fall off? They bleed, too. I guess I could try bandages, but that hurts too, and they only get caught in the staples anyway.

I’m a walking Halloween costume, and it’s all your fault. I hope you’re happy with that.

Shouto wants me to say I’m sorry, for being a villain. He thinks that’s all it takes to make me good again. He thinks you’ll forgive me and the world will go back to normal.

Was I that delusional at his age? It would have been just us back then. Fuyumi would have been a baby. I bet her quirk hadn’t even shown by then. Did you want her to be perfect, just like he wanted? Or did some part of you wish she’d have your quirk, and then you’d have one of each, because maybe that would have been good enough. A boy and a girl, fire and ice, a perfect happy family.

The thing is, I don’t actually want to be forgiven. Why should I? I’m a villain. We don’t go round begging for forgiveness. Kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?

A life for a life, isn’t that the phrase? He almost killed me, so I’m going to do the same to him, except I won’t stop until I know he’s dead. It’s what he deserves.

I’ll probably be killed for it, obviously. At the very least I’d be carted away to Tartarus. Locked up for the rest of my life, in penance for my crimes. Will you come and visit me? Oh, but I probably wouldn’t be allowed visitors. I’d be much too dangerous. After all, what kind of villain hurts and kills their own family?

I’ve used up all the paper. If I take more, Shouto will probably be really happy. “I bet you have lots to tell mommy!” he’ll say. He’s writing to his friend, the green haired kid. I tried to kidnap him too. Would have done it if Shouto hadn’t swooped in like a knight. He’s head over heels for the kid. Cute.

Maybe in another life I’d have been the caring, teasing older brother, ribbing him over his first love and cringing him out with a safe sex talk. I’d probably have a girlfriend of my own.

Oh, but I do have a boyfriend. He’s working for the heroes and playing double agent for the villains, isn’t that ironic? It would make a brilliant story.

It’s kind of a shame I’ll probably end up killing him, too. He’s dumb, but he’s great in bed and he’s good at lying. That’s not connected, at all.

My hand is kind of cramping. I don’t think I’ve ever written this much in my life. Are you proud of me, mom?

I’m not proud of myself, either, but I am what life has made of me. You could have stopped it, and maybe none of this would ever have happened.

Shouto will end his letter by saying he loves you. Somehow, he always has.

I’m not good with words, and it’s not like you’re actually going to read this.

So, thanks, mom. You and dad have made me the man I am today. I hope you’re happy about that.

Your loving son,

Todoroki Touya

Later, once Shouto was finished with his letters- one in red pencil, the other in green, both with childish drawings added around them- Touya helped him slip them into an envelope and sign his name on them.

“I’m really happy you wrote mommy a letter, Touya-nii!” he said, beaming. “She can read them both together!”

Touya tried to smile. “I’m sure she’ll love them, Sho.”

It would be a little difficult to replace the glue, but he’d make it work somehow.

With his work completed, Shouto started complaining that he was hungry, and Touya started making lunch for them.

Hawks waited until Touya was busy with Shouto, then slipped out of the room, envelope in hand. Neither of the brothers noticed as he opened the window and shot out into the sky, a red blur on the wind.

A few minutes later, across the city, Rei entered her room from where she had been talking to the nurses. Her eyes landed on the open window, frowning. As she went to close it, she noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor beneath it.

She picked it up, assuming it was just one of the cards blown down by the breeze. As she opened it to set it back, she saw a feather fall out from between the folds.

Dear Todoroki-san, it began.

My name is Takami Keigo. You probably don’t remember me, but  I work with your husband. I’m also a friend of Touya’s, and I’d like to ask for your help with something. I think you know some of what’s happening with Shouto right now, but I’ve tried to explain everything as best I can. Please, if you can, ring this number.

Rei read the rest of the letter over, then re-read it, then again. Her hands shook by the time she finished, and she slumped down onto the bed.

It took a long time for her to regain enough composure to think. Standing up, she walked over to the door, only a little unsteadily, and called to one of the nurses.

“Hello, Hana? May I make a phone call, please?”

Chapter Text

Hawks watched Touya play with Shouto on the small living room floor of the apartment, trying to ignore the feelings of fear and guilt that threatened to burn in his chest.

He was not going to tell Touya about the phone call he just made. That was one thing he was absolutely certain of. In fact, what he and Rei had just agreed on relied on it.

That didn’t make it any easier.

Touya had held off on telling Shouto that their time was limited, but it seemed like the boy knew anyway.

“When do I have to go home?” he had asked that morning after they had finished the letters.

“Tomorrow morning,” Touya had replied, and left it at that.

Shouto had been determined to make the most of the time he had with his brother, and seemed reluctant to even let Touya out of his sight for a moment.

Touya had managed to deflect or outright ignore all of Shouto’s muttered wishes for him to come home, until he had eventually given up.

It was evening now, with darkness having fallen over the city and illuminating the apartment from the glow of lights coming through the window. Shouto wanted to stay up as long as possible, and Touya was in no mood to stop him.

They all knew they were only delaying the inevitable, but it didn’t stop them from trying anyway.

The story of our lives, Hawks thought to himself.

Eventually, though, Shouto’s eyes began to droop, despite shaking himself awake forcefully.

“Bedtime, Sho.” Touya’s tone was soft, far softer than Hawks had ever heard.

The little boy shook his head. “Don’ wanna,” he mumbled, fighting it. “Wanna stay up with nii-san.”

“Oh? You gonna stay awake all night then?”

“mm-hmm. Don’ wanna-‘ a huge yawn- ‘go bed. ‘M gonna stay up til morning, cuz if I go to sleep, then it will be morning, and I don’ wanna go home without nii-san.”

Touya sighed, shooting a look to Hawks.

“I know, Sho.”

To Hawks’ total shock, Touya started humming, low and deep. Shouto frowned, his little face wrinkling up as he blinked sleepily.

“not fair, Touya-nii,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes as if that would help him stay awake. “No lullaby.”

Touya ignored him and drew Shouto close, lifting him up and settling him against his shoulder, then starting to sway back and forth almost imperceptibly.

Shouto fisted his hands in Touya’s shirt, stubbornly trying to keep his eyes open, but the soft vibrations from his humming as well as the comforting rocking motion meant that his head soon drooped onto his brother’s shoulder, and he gave in with a sleepy sigh. His hands relaxed their grip to wind around Touya’s neck instead, and he turned his head away from the light and into Touya’s skin, where the ever-present scent of smoke that was unmistakably Touya brought a smile of comfort to his face.

Touya’s mouth quirked in what, on anyone else, would have been a smile, and carried him out of the lounge to the bedroom. Hawks followed him more out of curiosity than anything else, holding the door open for Touya and watching as he lay Shouto down below the covers. He had had the presence of mind to grab the plush from where Shouto had left it in the lounge, and he handed it over to Touya wordlessly.

Shouto’s eyes fluttered open as he was set down, one hand clutching the plush and the other reaching out drowsily to cling to Touya’s sleeve, trying ineffectually to pull him closer.

“Go to sleep, brat,” Touya muttered, almost fondly.

Shouto tried valiantly to stay awake, but Touya stroked his two-tone hair softly until his eyes grew too heavy to stay open, and his breaths soon evened out into sleep.

He waited until he was sure Shouto was deeply asleep, then rose from the bed, leaving the door open a crack.

“Not a word, birdie,” he said as he pushed past Hawks.

Hawks wasn’t going to. There wasn’t anything to say, anyway.

He didn’t have siblings. He didn’t even have a past. He had no idea what it was like to be an older brother, or any kind of brother.

For twelve years of their lives, he had thought Touya was dead. Seeing him now, it was like it had never happened.

His thoughts carried him back to the lounge, where Touya had sunk onto the sofa and lay with a hand over his eyes.

Hawks settled into the beanbag, sensing that Touya didn’t want or need closer proximity than that.

“I’m not ignoring it, you know,” Touya said after a while. “I know damn well he has to go back there.”

He sighed deeply, before sitting up suddenly.

“This is such a fucking mess,” he said. “I need a beer.”

He made no move to get one, though, so Hawks clambered to his feet and went into the kitchen, getting one for himself as well.

Touya took it without a thanks, which Hawks didn’t expect anyway, and retreated back to the beanbag.

“You were on the phone before,” Touya said, deceptively airy.

Hawks had been expecting that.

“Work,” he lied effortlessly. “Doesn’t stop just because you take a day off.”

Touya very likely didn’t believe him, but he didn’t challenge Hawks on it either.

They sat in a tense sort of silence, until Touya sighed again.

“You should take him back,” he said. “As soon as possible.”

Hawks raised an eyebrow. “Me?”

“I’m not suggesting you go up to the house. Your boss doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

Hawks almost smiled at the choice of words, but he shook his head in answer.

“No, he doesn’t, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

He thought for a moment. “I could fly him over to, say, a block or so away. He can get around a corner by himself, right?”

Touya levelled him with a deep glare.

“My brother is not a fucking drop-off parcel, birdie,” he said.

Hawks returned the glare solidly. “Well, you got a better idea?”

They stared each other down until, surprisingly, Touya relented.

“Fine. Just don’t make a scene,” he said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m a double agent after all. Stealth is the name of the game.”

Touya’s glare deepened even further at that, if possible, then turned pensive.

“What you gonna do after this, birdie?” he asked.

Hawks frowned. He took a sip of beer before shrugging, replying, “Same as usual. Back to the day job. This isn’t the first time of the kids has been messed up, and with UA being the danger magnet it is, it sure won’t be the last.”

Especially with the plans in the works he left unspoken.

Touya seemed to get the thought anyway, and they fell back into silence.

“I don’t want to kill any of them,” he suddenly said.

Hawks raised an eyebrow again, taking a deep draught. He chose to stay silent.

“I mean it, Keigo.”

That made him pay attention, and he sat up straighter, staring at Touya.

“I won’t stop them getting hurt, but I don’t want any of the brats to die,” he continued. “Not just Shouto. I’d kill anyone who gets near him, but I don’t want any of the kids to die. Not for some stupid idea of morals or ethics, but because if a kid gets killed, the rest of them will come after us for revenge. Violence is fine, but killing makes things messy.”

Hawks couldn’t exactly argue with that.

“Soo, why tell me this? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for no murder, but so what? You want me to play hero even more than usual?”

Touya shook his head. “Just stop the others going too far. Toga will probably try and go for a few, at least. I can’t keep an eye on her all the time, so just stop her from going too crazy. I can deal with the others if I have to.”

Hawks tried not to interact with the girl as much as possible, which was true of almost all of the League. In fact, of all of them, only Jin seemed to be willing or able to spend any length of time with her.

Obviously she couldn’t help being born with her quirk, but the level of enjoyment she got from using it was just too creepy.

Touya drained the last of his beer, then stood up.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced. “You coming?”

Hawks nodded absently and mumbled a reply, not watching as Touya rolled his eyes and left the room.

He sat staring at the carpet, eyes unseeing, as a million thoughts ran through his head.

His mind settled on one, repeating endlessly.

I really hope this works.

Across the city, Rei was thinking. About many things, but mainly about the letter that she held in her hands.

Her cheeks were lined with the faint traces of the tears that had rolled freely down as she had read them, but now her face was remarkably calm.

She couldn’t deny the words her son had written, not all of it. There was deep anger there, too much of it, but it was a slow, burning ire steeped in over two decades of pain, hurt and injustice.

Touya was right. She had hidden, from her husband and her children, and her own fear and pain, until it had got too much and she had snapped. She had admitted that to herself long ago.

She could have left. She could have waited until Enji was at work and fled, gathering up clothes and toys and as much of their lives as would fit in a suitcase, and they could have gone far, far away, away from heroes and villains and the man who controlled them, but they didn’t.

Her fear had kept her there, wearing down her strength and will to resist until she no longer knew or even wanted to put up a fight. She had tried, when Shouto came to her burnt and bleeding and screaming for her. For a brief moment, she had stood up to her husband, insisting that it was too soon, pleading that Shouto be spared for just one more year.

But it hadn’t worked.

Every night she lay next to the man she had married, hearing his breaths as he slept beside her, and let silent tears break free.

She hadn’t wanted it to turn out like this. She could barely remember a time when she had had control of her own life. She had married at barely 21 years old, to a man she barely knew, in a marriage that had been arranged for her.

She had hoped, then, that things could end happily. Sure, she hadn’t got the fairytale wedding or husband she had dreamed of as a child, but back then she had at least been hopeful.

She hadn’t loved Enji to begin with, but she had admired him, supported him, respected him in his determination in achieving his goal.

Had he ever loved her? She wasn’t sure.

She loved all of her children. She had wanted to protect them. With every child she gave her husband, she had hoped that this would be it, he would be satisfied, he would learn to be happy. They could learn to be happy.

She had failed.

She remembered the day she had told Enji she was pregnant, that first time. His face had gone through more emotions than she had ever seen from him before, from shock to pleasure to something very close to fear, before settling on something like wonder. He had pressed his hands to her stomach as she cried tears of happiness, and he had promised her and their child the world, and she had been naive enough to believe him.

After all, he was working so hard, and he had already worked his way up so far, so how could he not succeed at this as well?

Then Touya was born, and Enji's behaviour began to change. After a while, they had Fuyumi, and for a brief moment Rei thought that perhaps it would be enough. 

The months and years went on, and Rei began to realise that that it wasn't.

Natsuo had been a third attempt, and she had held his tiny body in her arms and sobbed, realising at last that it would never be enough. Failure, for Enji, was never enough. 

Rei tried to resign herself to the fact. That, she thought, was when she had begun to give up. 

Three years after Natsuo was born, Enji told her he wanted to try again. Rei had agreed because she felt that she had no other choice, and spent every moment of her pregnancy praying that it would finally be the last. She no longer cared what kind of quirk the child was born with, or if they were a boy or a girl. All she wanted was to no longer have to allow her body to be used like this.

No child deserved to be brought into the world as an experiment, and she had already allowed it to happen not once, but three times. She could not allow it to happen again.

Whether it worked or not, this would be their last try. Even Enji seemed to understand it, and so all their hopes were pinned on their fourth and final child.

Maybe fate was kind to her. Maybe some god had finally taken pity on her, a lucky star shining down, or simply the luck of genetics. But she had held Shouto in her arms as she had all of her children, and watched as he stared up at her with mismatched eyes, and she had wept harder than she ever had before.

She had succeeded.

Shouto’s quirk came in, earlier than all his siblings, and she realised what the price of that success would be. Enji began to withdraw from them all, giving Shouto private lessons, away from his brothers and sister, barely even giving them the time of day. He had called them imperfect, reducing them to no more than failed attempts, and shut them out of his youngest child’s life.

Rei had focused her attention on them, giving them all the love she could, and doing the best she thought she could.

On the rare moments she was allowed to speak to her parents, she told her mother of her fear, only to be dismissed.

“He’s the baby, of course Enji is fussing over him. He’ll stop once he starts school. Don’t worry too much about it,” her mother had said.

“I’m scared,” she told her, trying to keep her voice low. “He gets more and more like him very day, and I can’t cope for much longer.”

Her mother had tried to reassure her that it wasn’t like that. “He’s under a lot of pressure. It can’t be easy, being the no.2 hero.”

That was all anyone seemed to think about.

He’s the no.2 hero. You should be proud, to be married to a man like that, they said.

Or would have. Enji kept his family tightly under wraps, to the point that even Rei herself didn’t know how much the press knew about them.

Did they exist, to the outside world? Did anyone know what Enji was like behind the mask, when the cameras weren’t pointing at him?

The thought began to plague her. She watched the TV screen, seeing her husband’s exploits and heroism played out across the country, and tried to reconcile it with the man he was at home.

Her sons came to her with burns and bruises, her daughter with tears and worry. Natsuo began to close himself off from them all, and Rei could see he was already beginning to form the same cracks inside that she herself was desperately trying not to let show.

She remembered the night Touya died. It had started so innocently. For once, all of her children were playing together in the few hours left to them before Enji came home.

Perhaps it was all her fault. She had been the one to ask Touya if he had finished his homework, and then to dismiss him as usual when he protested. As usual, she had told him to back down, to keep in line for just a little longer.

Perhaps if she had let him speak, had stood up, none of this would have happened. Perhaps she wouldn’t have had to throw herself on the floor and watch as her son’s life slipped away in front of her.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have broken. Perhaps Shouto’s face would have remained smooth.

Perhaps, if she had not been such a stupid, terrible coward, things would have been different.

But she didn’t, and they hadn’t, and it was no use dwelling on the past.

She had hurt her son, and for that she had been trapped here, shut away from her children, from her husband, and from the outside world.

She had hurt her son, and the other was dead because of her, so she deserved to be punished for it.

News filtered in in bits and pieces, from whispered conversations between the nurses that she wasn’t supposed to hear. But while she didn't have a phone, or TV, or even a radio, she did have ears, and people always gossiped, especially about people they didn't think could hear them. 

It had been difficult. So much so, that during those first few years she had been a danger to both herself and others, trapped in a cycle of self-hatred and guilt and so much fear until she couldn't cope and lashed out, just as she had with Shouto.

She had consented to whatever treatments the doctors wanted because she didn’t know what else to do. She had nothing else to do.

Eventually, she had stabilised. Slowly, she began to lift herself out of the darkness she had fallen into.

Fuyumi had been the only one allowed to see her. Rei wasn’t exactly sure why. She suspected that Enji simply didn’t care what their daughter did. She had always behaved, after all, and with her weak quirk she had never been either an issue or a threat in the way that her brothers were, so it was more than likely that he simply didn’t know what she was doing.

Natsuo did not visit her, but Fuyumi made sure to tell her everything. Rei knew that there was an awful lot she kept hidden, but even the mundane chatter helped to keep her from falling back into that abyss.

The counselling had helped too. For the first time, someone had listened to her. It had taken many, many months before she felt able to talk to anyone, but once she did she felt a relief that she had never felt before. More than once she had been left broken down in tears, barely able even to breathe through the pain, having worked her throat hoarse through talking, but for once someone had allowed her to speak, and that meant everything.

It wasn’t your fault, they told her.

Slowly, very, very slowly, she began to believe it. She wasn’t ever sure she would fully accept it, but very slowly she learned to see the past in a different life.

Perhaps, as they said, time was a healer, and she had had twelve years to think.

Eventually, Shouto was allowed to see her. Rei suspected that Fuyumi had had something to do with it, convincing the nurses that she was stable enough to be no danger.

Whatever the case, there came a day when the door to her room slid open and she saw her son standing there, flanked by his sister and brother and standing tall in his UA uniform.

Rei hadn’t been able to hold back the tears. She had embraced him and clung to him, murmuring apology after apology until her voice gave way.

Shouto had told her over and over that there was nothing to forgive. He had clung to her like a child, and Rei felt herself begin to heal.

From then, she finally had somewhat of an active part in her children’s lives. Natsuo stared visiting her more regularly, and Shouto came as often as he was able.

At first, their meetings had been stilted. He had been so young when she left, to the point that he barely remembered what it was like to have a mother. Eventually, though, as they got to know each other again, it became more natural, until they could laugh together and tease each other like any normal family.

Shouto did not shy away from telling Rei about his school life, even the danger. At first, Rei knew that Fuyumi and Natsuo had sternly told him not to, but she had seen the strength in his eyes and knew that her son was capable of protecting himself.

After what he had already been through as a child, what danger could he be afraid of?

His recollection of the sports festival had left her in tears as he showed her the flame on his palm.

“I won’t be like him, mom,” he had said, fire shining in his eyes brighter than the one on his hand. “I’m going to use my flames for good, to be a hero. Midoriya told me I can do it.”

Rei wanted to meet this boy, the quirkless (and fatherless, she learned) boy who had worked so hard to achieve his goals despite the odds stacked against him.

Whoever he was, Rei wanted to meet him, and thank him, for being her son’s friend. Thanks to this boy, Izuku Midoriya, who had come barrelling into her son’s life and shattered the icy walls he had built around himself for protection.

Shouto and Izuku would become heroes, of that Rei had no doubt.

She had never expected him to be hurt this way. Being attacked was one thing, but so far it had limited to his school, where he was surrounded by his teachers and classmates, all fighting together to protect and help each other.

A targeted attack by villains was one thing, but a random hit on the street was another altogether.

Seeing Shouto so young again had, for a moment, brought back all the terrible memories that she had tried to hard to work through.

But that had been twelve years ago, and it was in the past. She was a different person now, and her son had needed her, so she had channelled all of her strength and set the past aside.

Getting the letter she held in her hand had been a shock greater than anything she could ever have expected.

Shouto’s was written in a childish hand and filled with the same enthusiasm that she had come to rely on from him, and so she set it down with all his others, ready for when he was back to normal and she could gently tease him about it, adding it to all her precious memories to look back on in the future.

The letter she held now was different. More than anything, she felt a fierce, uncontrollable relief.

Her son was alive. Touya was alive. That fact alone was worth more than anything else she could ever hope for.

It was only the beginning, though.

She had not known that he had been in this same hospital. What would have been different if she had? Would she have charged down there, spending every moment by his bedside as he clung stubbornly to life? Would they have been able to recover together, and spare the pain of the past twelve years?

It was cruel, but it was in the past, and she would never know.

In some ways, reading the anger on the pages there was a relief. It was clear that Touya held a level of hatred for her, but it was nothing that she had not already thought about herself, so in a strange way it was almost a relief to have it confirmed.

If she could learn to forgive herself, perhaps Touya could too.

That did not mean that she believed that she necessarily deserved to be forgiven. If there was one thing she had learned from the years of therapy and counselling, it was that each person was entitled to their feelings, and there were some things that she would never be able to change. If Touya wanted, truly needed to blame her, if that was what had kept him going for those long years, then she could accept that.

It was clear that the majority of his anger was directed to Enji, and for that she didn’t blame him at all. To know that he wanted to kill his father was nothing new to her. Natsuo and Shouto had said the same thing sometimes, and as much as she admonished them for it, she could tell that there was still a part of them that had never given up on justice, holding on to the pain and fear that dominated their childhood.

Rei was no longer sure what she wanted to happen. She had changed, and so had her children. For all she had gone through, all they had all gone through, she clung to the possibility of change.

If nothing else, the red flowers that stood on her beside all this time spoke louder than words. Those red blooms were the one symbol that gave her hope throughout it all.

At first, she had thrown them out. More than once she had smashed the vase they were placed in, refusing to accept them. Despite that, they kept coming, week after week, even when she asked the nurses to destroy them.

After a while, she started keeping them. She was never sure exactly why. But their continued presence started to stay as a symbol of hope, as the one unchanging piece of the man she had married, even as his personality warped and changed beyond recognition.

There was still hope. Shouto believed his father could change, wanted to change, was changing.

Shouto had, after a long, calculating look at her, shown Rei what her husband’s face now looked like.

For a moment, seeing the scar, she had felt a small, selfish spark of delight, vindication that he finally knew what it was like to through the same fear and pain that his sons had, had come almost as close to death, before she had forced it down.

If Shouto was willing to believe, then so was she. She had to believe it.

If the conversation she had had with Keigo meant anything, then tomorrow, she would see the truth for herself.

Tomorrow, everything would change.

Chapter Text

Shouto woke the next morning with a moan of pain. His legs hurt, and his arms too. All his joints ached, feeling stretchy and hot. He sat up and stretched, hoping that it would make the pain go away, but it didn’t.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t been training for the whole week. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had gone even a day without training. Perhaps this was his body complaining. Didn’t daddy say that he had to train every day to keep his body strong?

Well, he was supposed to go home today anyway, so maybe he should start training again tomorrow.

Then again, daddy hadn’t been training either, and he was a hero, so it must be much more important for him. He resolved to mention it once he was home.

If he was being honest, he actually missed it, just a little bit. Sometimes it was nice to feel the flames on his hand, knowing he could control something that most people would shy away from.

With that resolution, he carefully pushed the covers away from the bed and climbed down, trying to make the bed as neat as possible. It was difficult, as he could barely reach the top of the bed even standing, so pulling the covers over it was almost impossible.

He heard the sound of the door opening and turned instinctively, relaxing only when he saw Keigo there.

Keigo was funny, Shouto had decided. He had wings, and he could fly for real, which was awesome. He had let Shouto play the game on the big TV, and hadn’t complained when he kept dying. He had shown Shouto lots of pictures of himself on patrol, including lots of blurry shots obviously in mid air (don’t do it, kid, I almost dropped my phone and nearly had a heart attack, 0/10 do not recommend) and he also worked with daddy, and he was the no.2 hero, so he had to be a good guy.

He was also Touya’s friend, and that above all else cemented him in Shouto’s good books.

“Hey there kiddo, you need a hand?”

Shouto shook his head determinedly. “I can do it!” he said. He tugged the covers more firmly, stretching onto tiptoes to try and get it to lie flat.

His feet kept slipping on the floor, however, and after falling forward and hitting the bed, he turned to Keigo shyly.

“I can’t do it,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I really tried to. But my bed at home is a futon, so it’s easier.”

Keigo laughed. “It’s fine, mini-roki. Just leave it, I’ll get it later. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

With the implicit permission, Shouto nodded.

Drawn by the sound of voices, Touya appeared in the doorway behind him.

“Is he awa- oh, you’re up.”

Seeing the bed half-made, Touya shot a look to Keigo. “Are you seriously expecting him to make the bed?” he asked.

Keigo shook his head. “Obviously not. He wanted to try. It’s not my fault your dad is old-fashioned.”

That didn’t help Touya’s glare. “Feel free to burn the house down if it bothers you that much. I’ll give you the matches. Maybe he’ll recruit you to redecorate,” he said sarcastically.

“I’ll pass, thanks. It’s not my house to burn. Besides, your sister invited me over to dinner, and I’m not about to waste that.”

“Stay the hell away from my sister, birdbrain. She’s way out of your league, and I don’t share.”

Keigo blinked in disgust, taking an instinctive step backwards. “Ew. Gross, man. I’m not hitting on her. I’m just here for the free food.”

“Just for that, you can make your own pancakes,” Touya retorted. “Come on, Sho, get away from him. Are you hungry?”

Shouto nodded again, appetite fired even further at the prospect of pancakes again. He ran to Touya, wincing slightly as his legs twinged again.

Touya was kneeling down to him in an instant, concern written across his face.

“What’s wrong, Shouto? Do your legs hurt?”

Shouto nodded. “My legs and my arms. It’s all sore, all over.”

He rubbed his arms, little fists squeezing his elbows and knees for emphasis.

Touya frowned. He looked up at Keigo, mentally calculating.

“When was he attacked?” he asked.

Keigo thought for a moment. “Saturday, probably,” he answered.

“Damn.”

It was Thursday. Most quirks’ effects didn’t last longer than a week. Really, it was surprising that Shouto had shown no sign of reversing till now.

Forcing a semblance of a reassuring smile, Touya rubbed Shouto’s arms, letting just enough heat onto his palms to soothe.

“What’s wrong with me, nii-san?” Shouto asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he answered. “You’re just growing, that’s all.”

Shouto’s face seemed to light up at that. “You mean I’ll be big again soon?” he asked, delighted.

“Uh-huh,” Touya said. “Back to normal, brat.”
Shouto was beaming now, all sign of pain forgotten. “That means I’ll get to go back to school, right? And see Midoriya and all my friends and All Might?”

Touya shrugged and looked at Keigo, who took the hint. Kneeling down as well, he smiled at Shouto.

“That’s right, kiddo. Back to school, and training with me and your dad. Are you looking forward to it?”

Shouto nodded frantically. “I want to see everybody in my class,” he said. “You and daddy said I’m nearly a hero! I want to save people!”

Keigo let out a laugh and stood up, ruffling Shouto’s hair. “You’re doing great, Shouto. But you only just qualified, so lets go slow, ok? You’ll have to catch up with what you’ve missed at school.”

Shouto’s face fell briefly, and Touya glared at him for it. It didn’t last long though, as Shouto stared back at him determinedly, eyes alight.

“I’ll work hard!” he promised.

“All well and good, but it’s time for breakfast,” Touya said, cutting him off. “Does it still hurt?”

Shouto shook his head. “I want to be big again!” he stated. “So if this means I’m growing, then it’s fine!”

“Not what I- oh, fine.”

Seeing that Shouto had a goal in mind, Touya gave up.

The cynical, vicious, villainous side of him said in a not-so-quiet voice that Shouto was used to putting up with a hell of a lot more pain for far less gain. What were a few growing pains compared to burns and scalds?

The other, more human side of Touya watched his enthusiasm with a mix of sadness, grief and something close to fear.

When Shouto returned to normal, so would his mind and memories. With no guarantee that his memories of this week would remain, there was every reason to believe that Shouto would look at him with his usual hatred.

He shook his head internally. Natsuo and Fuyumi had both said they already had suspicions about him. Shouto had spent far more time with him even as a student, so there was even more reason to hope that he already knew.

He shook his head for real this time. What was wrong with him? He was Dabi. He shouldn’t be thinking such weak thoughts.

Whatever happened when Shouto returned to normal, it didn’t affect their plans in the slightest.

Dabi had a job to do, one that allowed for no personal relations at all. Even Keigo didn’t know more than the basics, and for his own safety, Dabi needed to keep it that way.

He suddenly regretted ever dropping by the house. If he hadn’t seen Shouto, he would have remained totally ignorant of all this. The mission had to go ahead, for all their sakes, no matter how Shouto could get caught up in it.

Being with Keigo had changed him too much. He had to focus on the mission.

Touya was dead. He was Dabi. That was all there was to it.

The thing was, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and watching his boyfriend laugh and play with his little brother, it was getting harder and harder to keep convincing himself that.

Later, after breakfast, Touya watched as Shouto played the game again. He was taking great delight in fighting against Dabi, and kept shooting furtive glances to him with a gleeful expression.

“Oy, brat, I can see you, you know,” he said mildly.

Shouto simply grinned at him. On-screen, Bakugou took the chance to fire a volley at Dabi, making him falter.

On-screen Dabi soon retaliated with his own fire, beating the boys back to regroup. With Shouto distracted, the screen soon flashed with the message GAME OVER.

Shouto turned back to the screen too late.

“You killed me!” he said, affronted.

“Too bad, squirt.” Touya ruffled his hair all the same, making him squawk with annoyance.

He turned back to the screen, idly playing with the controller in his hand.

“Nii-san? You promise you won’t hurt us again, right?” he asked in a small voice.

Touya sighed. He really wanted to avoid this conversation.

“Wait until you’re back to normal, then we’ll talk,” he answered.

Shouto turned round to him, game forgotten.

“That’s not an answer,” he said, face stony. “You have to promise.”

Suddenly, Touya was fed up with this.

“Well, I can’t,” he said. “I’m a villain, Shouto. You getting hit by a quirk doesn’t change that. With your track record I’m kind of shocked it took this long, even. I will attack people again, I will target your school again, and I can’t promise that I won’t hurt any of the kids.”

Shouto’s eyes were filling with tears, but Touya remained unfazed.

He had gone through enough, and he should be old enough to understand how the world worked by now. One week wasn’t nearly enough to change that, and Touya had been an idiot to start believing it.

“You’re a liar!” he yelled, glaring at him. “I want to go home!”

“Fine then! GO! Run home to daddy, just like he wants!” Touya retaliated.

“Well, daddy’s being nicer than you now, so there! And nee-san and Natsu-nii are all at home and I can play with them whenever I want, and I get to see mommy, too!”

Despite his tears, Shouto was standing his ground determinedly, glaring up at Touya fiercely.

“Everyone else is at home, except you,” he said. “Mommy and daddy said they’re sorry for hurting me and being mean, and Fuyu-nee says she believes daddy wants to be better. Natsu-nii says he doesn’t, but he’s still going to try. You’re the one who left. You weren’t there for years and years, so you don’t know anything that happened. So if mom and dad are willing to try and change, why aren’t you?”

His voice had got progressively more adult as he spoke, until he sounded almost like his normal self. His expression looked far too adult for his childish face.

Was it Touya’s imagination, or was he standing an inch or two taller as well?

He forced the thoughts down, allowing the anger to take over instead.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. You were fucking four, what the hell would you know?” he said. “You had it easy compared to me. You’re the baby, the favourite, the one he wanted. What, you think just because you survived long enough to get into UA, you’re better than us? Daddy’s favourite, is that it? You get a license and a bunch of little cronies and suddenly you have the right to lecture me? You have no idea. You’re a child. A stupid, idiotic, idealistic child.”

He laughed, bitter and dark. “Perfect hero material. You’ll do well, Shouto. Send me a postcard from Tartarus, will you?”

Suddenly, he just wanted to be alone. Away from the League, from heroes, from everyone.

The rational part of his mind would have said that Shouto was right, but that part of him had died twelve years ago, and he didn’t want to resurrect it.

Anger and pain had sustained him this far, and he couldn’t afford to let anything stop that.

“Hawks. I know you’re there. Get him out of my sight.”

Hawks jumped. He had indeed been standing in the doorway, waiting in case things got (literally) heated.

He knelt down and opened his arms, fixing his eyes on Shouto. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you back to your dad, ok?”

Shouto nodded. He paused as he stepped past Touya, and stuck his tongue out childishly.

“I hate you, nii-san.”

Touya didn’t dignify that with a response. His fists were clenched, standing staring stonily forward trying to keep his anger in check.

He distantly heard Keigo talking to Shouto, his voice forcibly light and carefree, keeping him calm.

Soon, he heard the sound of the door opening and closing, before he was left in silence.

Well, shit. He had really blown it like that, hadn’t he?

Shouto was quiet as Keigo readied him to go home. It would have been worrying, but the anger on his face was better than blankness.

Besides, Keigo had no idea what to say to him.

Well, I’m actually playing double agent, so I don’t really have room to talk to a kid about taking the moral high ground.

However, if there was one thing heroes learned, it was how to speak to people happily, so he channelled every lesson the academy had beat into him.

“Are you ready to fly, kiddo?”

A hint of interest in the two-tone eyes. That was something, at least. He could work with that.

“Are you scared of heights?”

Shouto seemed to think about it, then shook his head. “I’m not scared!” he said.

Keigo forced a breezy smile. “That’s good. Not everyone is, you know. Even I was scared for a while!”

That did the trick. Shouto looked up at him disbelievingly.

“But you can fly,” he said with childish logic.

Keigo laughed. “Yep. But it still takes a lot of getting used to. It’s kind of scary learning how to fly.”

Shouto frowned, thinking. “Don’t you just jump up, and then spread your wings?”

“Nope. I can now, obviously, but not at first. Do you know how I learnt to begin with?”
Shouto shook his head, interested now.

“They took me to the top of a really high building, and then-“ he paused for dramatic effect- “push!”

Shouto gasped. “But what if you fell? You’d die!”

Keigo laughed again. “Yep, but it worked. I screamed like a baby until I was about halfway down, then my wings just kind of kicked in. After that, I wasn’t so scared anymore.”

Shouto seemed to take that in, thinking.

“My quirk hurt me a lot at first, too,” he said. “That’s why I have to train with daddy, so I learn to control it. Is it like that for everyone?”

“Sometimes. Not everyone is born with a quirk that’s easy to handle. We have to learn what makes it work best, and how to best use it. For example, Deku’s quirk makes him super strong, but it also breaks his bones if he goes too hard. And Bakugou explodes everything he touches if he’s not careful. It’s about balance, and learning. But you know what?”

Shouto looked up at him curiously. “What?”

Keigo grinned at him. “I’d say you’re all doing a great job. Now, are you ready to fly?”

“Yeah!”

“Ok, up we go then.”

He lifted Shouto into his arms, carrying him out of the door. Once he had enough space in the street, he spread his wings and launched himself upwards.

Shouto instinctively hid his face in Keigo’s shoulder, before slowly relaxing and taking a tentative glance. Keigo held him securely, and he slowly gained the confidence to look around, taking in the sight of the city from above.

“Wooow, it’s so big!”

“Yep. It’s really something from here, isn’t it?”

Shouto nodded. Suddenly, he caught sight of something and pointed.

“That’s my house!”

Keigo fought the urge to laugh. Kids were the same everywhere, it seemed.

“Ok, and going…dooooooown!”

He alighted on the street carefully, waiting until the dust cloud from his wings folding had dissipated before setting Shouto down.

“Ok, you good to get in by yourself now?” he asked.

Shouto nodded.

“You got everything?”

He nodded again, before his shoulders fell.

Seeing it, Keigo took something out of his jacket. “Are you sure? You aren’t forgetting something?”
He held out the plush, seeing Shouto’s eyes light up.

“Are you sure I can keep it? Really?”

Keigo nodded. “Of course. It’s yours now, kiddo. Maybe you can even get him to sign it once you’re back to normal. He really loves you kids, you know.”

Shouto beamed at him. “Really?!”

Keigo laughed and ruffled his hair. “Would he have agreed to be your teacher if he didn’t?”

“You’ll want this, too.”

He handed over the letter, thanking every god in existence that Rei had agreed with the plan, and that the hospital had allowed him to use their copy machine.

“Uh-huh! Thank you!”

Shouto looked down, clutching it to his chest, before looking up at Keigo.

“You know, I think mommy would like you, Keigo-nii,” he said shyly.

“Really?”

Shouto nodded. “Uh-huh. You’re kind, and so is mommy. I think she’d like to meet you. You can talk about daddy! You must have lots of stories from working together!”

Keigo rubbed his head, laughing. “Well, that’s true. Maybe one day, Shouto.”

Literally, if I pull this off, he thought.

Not letting his thoughts show on his face, he smiled down at Shouto. “Now, you’d better get home, ok?”

Shouto looked sad for a moment, but nodded. “What are you going to do? Are you going back to nii-san?”

Keigo shook his head. “I think I should let him calm down for a bit first. I have to go to work. It’s kind of sucky, but that’s a hero for you! It’s a lot of paperwork! Bleurgh!”
Shouto giggled at the face he made. “Will I have to do lots of paperwork too when I’m a hero?”

“Yep. Loads of it. So you better keep working hard now, ok? Help your dad and me out when you’re back to normal, and we can go out on patrol and put that provisional license of yours to good use, how’s that sound?”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Natsuo standing at the corner of the road, having obviously got his text before he left.

“Yeah!” Shouto beamed at him.

“That’s the spirit. Ok, don’t keep your dad waiting. Go on, I’ll see you later.” He pushed Shouto towards the corner, nodding at Natsuo.

“Ok. See you, Keigo-nii! Oh, Natsu-nii!”

He took off towards his brother, babbling childishly and showing him the plushie.

“Look what Keigo-nii gave me! It’s All Might!”

“That’s cool, Sho. Say thank you to Keigo for letting you stay in his house.”

“Thank you, Keigo-nii!” Shouto beamed and waved at him.

Keigo smiled back. “Stay cool, kiddo.”

He launched upwards again, stopping once he was high enough to only just be visible, then, waving once, flew off.

The plan hadn’t, well, gone to plan so far, but his mind was already running through possibilities.

Oh well. It was incredibly risky, and he would probably lose a few feathers from this, but he didn’t really have a better idea.

The things I do for this family, he thought as he made his way back to the apartment, where, contrary to all common sense, he really hoped Touya’s anger hadn’t died down.

Chapter Text

Keigo returned to the apartment only to find it silent and empty.

For a moment, he simply stood there, sighing, and wondered just who or what he had managed to anger so dreadfully for his life to turn out this way.

Can I not catch a break just once, please?

Thinking like that did no good, though, so he reluctantly turned around.

It didn’t take long to find him, however. Whether he knew Touya well enough by now or that the man was just predictable, Keigo entered the dingy bar of the League’s hideout to see Dabi sitting on a stool and solidly downing the row of shot glasses in front of him.

Shigaraki was sat next to him, closer than Keigo thought he had ever seen the two, and was watching him with as close to an interested expression as he ever got. Behind the bar, Kurogiri was polishing a glass with a towel, looking as impeccably dressed as usual.

Keigo really wanted to see the man’s face. Did he even have one, he wondered, or was he born with a voided visage? That would have shocked his parents, surely.

He was getting sidetracked. His entrance hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Toga was staring at him with unabashedly malicious glee.

“Birdy came running in, oh yes he did. He’s gonna get his wings aaallll singed off!” she sang.

Keigo repressed a shudder, ignoring her. Beside her, Twice shot him a curious glance. He had his mask on, whether to hide his natural anxiety or because he was planning to go out, Keigo neither knew nor cared.

“Well, well, what do you know. You weren’t wrong after all, Dabi,” Shigaraki said in his usual hissing whisper.

Kurogiri was the only one who nodded in greeting. It was impossible to tell what his expression was, but he carried on polishing the glass with the typical calm of a bartender who knew his clientele well enough to hide the more delicate breakables.

Dabi did not turn around. He kept his back to Keigo, downing the last shot slowly and setting the glass down with an audible ‘plink’ on the wood.

Kurogiri took it silently and slid it along to the sink, doing the same with the rest. He began running the water under each one, washing and drying them carefully before placing them under the counter.

Keigo had to admire his professionalism. Had he always been a villain, or did he just get fed up with customers?

Well, he wouldn’t be the only bartender to turn to a life of crime, he supposed. At least Kurogiri was one of the least physically violent members of the League.

Keigo took a look around the room, judging the atmosphere. In doing so, he accidentally caught Shigaraki’s eye, his lipless Cheshire grin only widening when he saw the chill that it sent through him.

“Shall we clear the room?” he asked mildly. “Or do you want an audience for your lovers spat? Dabi here has been coy on the details, and we’re all just dying to know what happened. He stormed in here and wouldn’t say a word, only sat there downing shots like his life depends on it.”

He fixed Keigo with a terrifying gaze, still grinning.

“There’s only two things that get our fiery friend that worked up,” he said conversationally. “One being the delightful Todoroki Enji, everyone’s favourite hero. The other,’ he paused for dramatic effect, knowing full well the effect it had on Keigo, ‘is you. So, birdman, which is it? The number one hero, or the second best?”

Keigo glared back at him. “It’s nothing to do with you,” he answered.

“Being coy as well? That’s a shame. You know, we were going to call a meeting to discuss the plans, but I think this is much more interesting. What do you say, Toga, Jin? Shall we get our little birdie to open up?”

Toga was playing with the knife in her hands, and brought it up to her lips, licking it. Keigo fought not to curl his lip in disgust.

Really, that girl was messed. up.

“Enough with the theatrics. I’m here for Dabi, and the rest of you can go be creepy or terrorise the kids or whatever. I don’t have any more info for you,” he said, letting his annoyance show in his voice.

“Aww, that’s no fun!” Toga said. “I wanna hear what Dabi did! Or what you did. You know, I bet it was you that messed up, not him. He has the whole surly-and-silent thing going on, but you-‘

She hopped off the seat, stalking towards Keigo with the knife still in her hands, leaning in to him (ew, she was blushing, too, how creepy was that?)-

‘You’re weak. I bet I can make you spill aaallll your secrets,” she whispered, cackling.

“Really, really, no,” Keigo said. “Go and play with your little murder dolls or something. Better yet, I’m pretty sure the kids are on patrol right now. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get Izuku to say more than two words to you.”

Those words being a wholehearted ‘get lost’, but she didn’t need to know that.

As predicted, the thought of her beloved set her off into a fantasy, and the blush on her cheeks deepened.

“Ahh, really? I really want to know the drama, but I really really need more of my darling Izuku’s blood! Shigaraki!”

The man turned to her with a displeased expression, watching dispassionately as she twirled around, holding the knife to her lips as she imagined the taste of the boy’s blood on it.

“What,” he barked.

“Do tell me everything when I get back, won’t you? I want to hear all the details,” she said. She skipped out of the door before Shigaraki could reply, humming to herself.

The room seemed to darken slightly when she left, and Keigo was strangely glad of it.

“Well?” Shigaraki asked. “Now that Toga is gone, you don’t have to hold back. So tell.”

Keigo rolled his eyes.

“What is this, Desperate Housewives? I hadn’t pegged you for a drama bitch, Shigaraki. Is it that boring being cooped up in here that you’re thirsting for gossip? It’s none of your business. It’s between me and Dabi.”

“It concerns you and Dabi, who I am supposed to be working with, which makes it my business,” Shigaraki said. “In case you forget, we are in the middle of planning something on a scale that this country has never seen, and here you are, whining like children.”

Given that Shigaraki himself looked like he should be gracing the cover of a particularly gothic metal band, Keigo thought he didn’t really have room to talk.

“Whatever. I’m not here to give you a daytime TV performance. I’m here for Dabi, but clearly he’s too coward to face me, because instead of arguing like rational adults, he decided to run away and get shitfaced instead. Real good argument there, flameboy.”

He turned to Shigaraki, smiling widely.

“You know, actually, I think I can tell you what happened, after all. You see, I went in to work on Monday only to be told that Endeavor, who I’m supposed to be working with, had taken the week off. I thought, hey, dude is entitled to a holiday every now and then, yknow? So it was cool. But then, as the week goes on, I find that as the number two hero, I get all his work dumped on my desk instead, and that pisses me off. I mean, the reason I’m with you guys is because I want to take them all down anyway, and to do that I need the deets, but there’s such a thing as limits, right?”

He spread his wings out, throwing his hands in the air for good measure.

“So, I’m working my ass off, getting pissed off, and I’m thinking about maybe calling him up and asking when he’s gonna be back at work, because this ain’t my section and I’m tired of fucking paperwork and signing kids backpacks and everything else. So I decide to do a little recon and take a flyby past his house. I saw him in the garden, just chilling, and it just made me mad, right? So I call up my good friend Dabi, who just happens to have made it his life goal to take him down, and let him know that the man himself is just sitting there relaxing at home, practically begging for it.”

He glared at Touya’s back, letting his anger show fully now.

“Only, instead of jumping at the chance, he’s too coward to do it. What, is it not public enough for you? Want me to get a couple TV cameras in to film it, would that be better? Hell, I could do it myself with a go-pro if you want!”

Dabi still didn’t turn around, and Keigo felt what little patience he had left snap.

“Wait, no, I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “Why don’t I just go over there and explain the whole thing myself, huh? Just spill the beans to him, maybe tell Shouto too for good measure? It’s a two-for-one deal, getting the hero and his successor all at once. Sure, he’ll probably kill me for it, but hey, I’m getting bored of all this anyway. At least it’d be a good way to go, right?”

Still Dabi didn’t turn around, though his shoulders were tense, and Keigo knew he had struck a nerve by mentioning Shouto.

So it should, the way he left him. Beaten by a six-year-old, how tragic.

“Well, Dabi? Aren’t you going to give your loverboy an answer? That’s a pretty bold idea he’s suggesting. I think he deserves some kind of response, don’t you?”

Shigaraki was still grinning, revelling in the anger and tension in the air and thriving off it.

Dabi turned his head ever so slightly.

When neither of them got a response, even Shigaraki got slightly irritated.

“Hey, I asked you a question,” he said. He leant towards Dabi, gripping the shoulder of his jacket and shaking him.

“Answer him, you idiot!”

Dabi did respond this time, but only with a groan.

“Fuck off, handyman,” he mumbled. “You’re pissing me off. Oy, void, give me another shot.”

Kurogiri didn’t answer, and Dabi sighed deeply. He slipped off the stool, swaying slightly before finally turning to face Keigo.

“What the hell do you want, birdie,” he said.

Or, more accurately, slurred.

Keigo took in the sight of him. Touya’s eyes were bloodshot, red-rimmed and unfocused as he glared at Keigo.

“Oh my god, you’re fucking drunk,” Keigo said.

He was fed up with this. Striding forward, he grabbed Touya by the neck of his shirt just as Shigaraki had done.

“I am fucking done with you!” he yelled. “I give up. If you refuse to do it yourself, I’m gonna make you. Shigaraki, I’m taking this piece of shit with me. If you see him being murdered on the news, I’ll give you guys the full details, ok?”

Shigaraki waved his hand (one of his real ones, thankfully. Keigo had seen him use one of the many on his body before, and it creeped him out every time) and grinned.

“Make sure and bring his body back to us, birdman,” he sang. “He’s been getting irritating lately, but I’m sure we can find a use for his body somehow. Toga has been dying to get his blood, I know.”

“Will do.”

Keigo dragged Touya out of the bar, wrestling with him until they were out of the door.

“Well, this should be interesting, don’t you think?” Shigaraki said. “In fact, I think we should pay a visit to the house ourselves, don’t you?”

“It would be unwise,” Kurogiri said. “Allow them to fight it out amongst themselves, and we shall step in to pick up whoever may remain.”

“And kill two birds with one stone,” Shigaraki agreed, his eyes alight. “We’d get rid of them both at once. Good idea, Kurogiri.”

“I aim ever to be useful,” the void-faced villain replied.

He kept on polishing the glasses, while Shigaraki allowed his mind to wander through the possibilities.

If Touya was uncooperative when sober, he was even worse when drunk, Keigo decided. He had managed to drag Touya far enough into the street to be able to fly, and was now struggling to keep a hold of him.

It was hard enough to carry anyone as it was, but Touya was making it even more difficult. However, the air, or the height, seemed to be sobering him up quickly, which Keigo was both grateful for and was causing him to steadily lose what little patience he had left.

“I will kill you for this,” Dabi said, twisting in Keigo’s hold. He summoned a fireball to the palm of his hand, reaching for Keigo’s wings.

Keigo’s response was to fly even higher, until he felt the cold, wet touch of the clouds.

“Burn my wings and I’ll drop us both, and only one of us can fly,” he said stonily. “I wasn’t joking. I’ll tell Enji everything, whether you’re alive to hear it or not.”

“He’ll kill you for sure when he finds out you’re a traitor, anyway. Clearly you aren’t a coward after all,” Touya shot back.

“Try me and see,” Keigo answered. “I’m willing to put my life on the line. As far as I’m concerned, your entire family is just one big screw-up, and I’m done trying to help you. Either man up and face your father, or I’ll drop you right now and you can try and survive the fall on your own. At least you have a chance against Enji. The ground won’t be nearly as forgiving.”

He loosened his grip just a little, viciously pleased when he felt Touya dig his hands into Keigo’s jacket.

“You bastard.”

“Aww, resorting to name-calling now, are we? Poor baby. Even Shouto can manage better than that, and he’s a kid. Hmm, whatever will I tell him when you die? I bet he wouldn’t even be that sad. After all, you did a pretty good job of making him hate you back then. Real stunning work, big brother.”

“I mean it, I will murder you.”

“Good luck trying. Tell you what, if you still want to kill me after this, you can try all you want.”

Without warning, Keigo descended rapidly, breaking through the clouds and diving down before stopping abruptly only a few metres above the ground.

Seeing the garden below him, Touya started swearing.

Keigo remained undeterred. He prised Touya’s hands from his jacket, holding him like a twisted version of The Lion King.

“Now, say hi to the fam for me! I’ll be back in a bit, ok?”

He let Touya go, watching for a heartbeat as he fell. As soon as he confirmed that Touya was alive and relatively unharmed, he flapped his wings forcefully, propelling himself upwards until he was out of sight.

He orientated himself towards the hospital and flew steadily. Touya was in Enji’s hands now, and it was not going to be pretty.

Luckily, Keigo had backup on his side. He alighted in the parking lot of the hospital, and strode forward into the lobby with his winning smile.

“Hello, ladies,” he said to the nurses, who were staring at him with shocked expressions. “I’m here to visit a patient. They’re expecting me, but can we keep it low-key, please? Hero business and all.”

“Certainly, Hawks-san!” one of the nurses gushed. “Please, just fill out this form. Oh, just leave out anything you can’t say, of course!”

He did so, handing it back with a wink.

“Oh, that’s…” the nurse took the clipboard back from him with a puzzled glance.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not. One moment, please.”

The nurse bowed briefly and went over to the desk, picking up the phone and waiting.

“Hi, Hana? I have a visitor for you. He says he’s expected. Oh? Alright then. He’ll be up in a minute then. Thanks.”

With the call concluded, the nurse walked back over to him, smiling apologetically.

“I’m very sorry, Hawks-san, it’s just protocol. Please, follow me.”

Hawks smiled at her and waved genially. “I totally get it. I’m a total slave to the red tape too. You ladies do a fantastic job. I guess being a hero means I send a lot of people your way, huh? Don’t overwork yourselves too much!”

The nurse giggled, clearly entranced. “Oh no, we’re not heroes, Hawks-san. We just do our job. You’re the one saving the city and keeping us all safe! I don’t know what we’d do without you!”

Hawks kept the smile on his face.

Of course you don’t, he thought.

He kept the smile until they were out of the lift, keeping it on as the nurse showed him to the desk.

“Here he is! I’ll leave you with my colleague, Hana. If you need anything, she’ll be more than happy to help. Again, thank you for everything you do, hero!”

Hawks winked at her, making her blush and hurry away, a hand held to her cheek.

Hana was considerably less smitten with him.

“I don’t know exactly why you’re here, Hawks-san,” she said. “But I assume you know Rei’s situation. Please, she’s come so far, but she’s still in a fragile state, so I assume I don’t need to ask you to be careful.”

“I know. I’m not here in my…official capacity, as it were,” he said. “I’m here as a friend, not a hero.”

Hana didn’t look entirely convinced, but something in Keigo’s expression must have convinced her, as she stepped forward and knocked on the door of Rei’s room, nodding at him when she heard Rei’s answer.

“Well, enjoy your visit, Hawks-san,” Hana said. “As I’m sure my colleague said, if you need anything, I’ll be at the desk.”

Keigo nodded at her, waiting until she had returned to the desk before stepping into the room.

Rei was waiting for him, standing by the window and staring out at the city.

She turned to him as he entered, scrutinising his face.

“Hello, Keigo,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Or, again, maybe I should say.”

She stepped towards him, looking up at him with a slightly wonderous expression, before giving a little laugh.

“I do recognise you, I think,” she said. “I know you were only Touya’s friend for a short while, but I can see it in your face. You’ve grown so much.”

Her face turned sad, and Keigo knew she was thinking of Touya.

After a moment, though, her expression turned to resolution, and she looked up at him in determination.

“Enough of dwelling on the past,” she said. “What do you need me to do?”

Fuyumi had been walking along the corridor with a tray of tea in her hands, and with truly cinematical drama, dropped it with a crash when she saw the body lying in the garden.

Ignoring the broken china at her feet, she crept towards the man, silently praying for them not to be dead.

The first thing she saw was black hair and a tattered coat.

A very familiar-looking black coat.

An awful suspicion took hold of her, and she knelt forward cautiously, trying to see his face without moving him. She glanced up at the sky, where she caught the faintest glimpse of red, blurring out of sight so quickly that she might have simply imagined it.

Turning back to the man, she contemplated what to do.

If it was who she thought, she wasn’t sure what she should do.

With too many thoughts running through her mind, she took a deep breath.

First things first, she decided.

Reaching out, she steeled herself, and moved the man until he was face-up. It was difficult, made more so by his utter lack of cooperation.

When his face was finally revealed, Fuyumi couldn’t help but gasp, reeling back with tears coming to her eyes.

She was right. The man in front of her was Touya.

It wasn’t pretty. Up close, the scars were even more apparent than on TV, the metal standing out starkly against the purple skin.

She found herself leaning forwards in equal parts curiosity and fear, desperate to see his face in the flesh for the first time in twelve years.

Only to reel back in disgust as she caught the strong scent of alcohol wafting off him, mixing with the ever-present scent of smoke and metal.

“Urgh, you’re drunk!”                      

She didn’t mean for the exclamation to slip out, but he had obviously heard her, which at least proved that he was alive.

“No shit,” Touya mumbled. He was pretty much conscious and sober now, thanks to Keigo’s unorthodox methods, and he was not happy about it in the slightest.

He managed to open his eyes, and peered up at his sister muzzily.

She stared back at him disapprovingly, her eyes magnified by the glasses framing them.

She looked every inch the proper, prim schoolteacher, from the neat cut of her hair to the sensible cardigan and trousers she wore.

“You look old,” he said.

“And you look a mess,” she retorted.

Not the words she wanted to say to her brother, but she was running on pure adrenaline, and it was making her babble. “Honestly, what on earth happened to you?” she asked. “Besides the obvious.”

“Birdbrain dropped me,” Touya said, deadpan.

“Birdbrain?” she repeated, confused. “Who do you- oh, do you mean Hawks? Wait, so that was him I saw. It is Hawks, right? The hero? Why is he with you?”

She shook her head hurriedly. “No, don’t answer that,” she said. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. You shouldn’t be here. What are you doing here! Dad will kill you if he finds you!”

“No shit,” Touya repeated. “I didn’t plan to get dropped here.”

Fuyumi frowned as she shot a glance towards the house. None of the others had come running, however, so she assumed that they hadn’t heard her cry. She wasn’t entirely sure if that was good or bad, but regardless, there was something she had to say to him.

“Shouto is very upset with you,” she said sternly. “I don’t know what you did or said to him, but whatever it was, you owe him an apology.”

Touya sneered at her. “Good luck with that,” he spat.

Fuyumi treated him to her best schoolteacher stare. “He is a child, and your little brother,” she said. “You had twelve years to think what you would say to him, and somehow you ended it like that? He was in tears, Touya. How could you be so cruel to him?”

“I’m a villain, it comes naturally,” he answered. “He’ll forget it all when it wears off. Besides, I’ve done way worse to him and his little friends, or have you forgotten that?”

Fuyumi slapped him. Perhaps it was the fear running through her, but she was working purely on instinct here.

Her brother was here. Sure, he was also a wanted criminal and had numerous warrants for his arrest, but he was her brother.

She massaged her hand, glaring at Touya. That metal hurt. She could only imagine what it felt like to be imbedded in skin.

Shaking her head and steeling her nerves, she focused on the man in front of her. Never mind being a villain, she had to focus on Touya as he was now, in front of her, hurt and possibly injured, and clearly still quite intoxicated.

Well, she was used to dealing with recalcitrant children, and popular theory did say that there wasn’t much difference between the two.

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed, holding a hand to his cheek.

She slapped him again.

“Enough of that language. Start talking right now, or I’ll call dad here instead, and he won't be nearly as willing to listen,” she said.

“Oh, how terrifying. Do it,” he said, eyes daring.

They stared each other down, sibling to sibling, in a way they hadn’t done since they were children.

It was as thought the past twelve years had never happened.

But it had, and they could never go back to the way it was before.

The fact that Touya was here, now, proved that.

“Nee-san? What’s happening?”

A small voice came from the veranda, and Fuyumi whipped her head around to see Shouto standing there.

His eyes found Touya’s, and he glared at him.

He was definitely taller now, and dressed in clothes that Touya was fairly certain were remnants of Natsuo’s, seeing that they were hanging off his frame slightly even with the newly-added height. He stood there defiantly, arms crossed with childish anger as he continued to glare at Touya.

Any hopes that his memories or anger would fade were dashed, as the boy turned to the house very deliberately and called.

“Dad! Natsu! Come here, quick!”

“Shouto, no,” Fuyumi said, too late.

A few moment later, Enji and Natsuo appeared on the veranda, and followed Shouto’s pointing arm to where Fuyumi and Touya were frozen.

There was a long pause while the two men simply took in the sight, before Enji spoke.

“Fuyumi, get away from him,” he ordered, voice steady and controlled.

She did as bidden, rising to her feet smoothly and going to stand with Shouto and Natsuo.

“Remember, start talking,” she hissed at Touya before she left, eyes pleading.

He sneered at her again, but stayed stubbornly silent.

For a long moment, the family simply stood and stared at each other. Touya was still lying awkwardly on the ground, and after a minute of utter silence, he pushed himself to his feet, groaning as his muscles protested.

“Well, what are you staring at?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Shouto huffed and moved closer to Enji, making his affiliation clear.

Enji moved his arm in front of Shouto protectively and pushed him behind him. Shouto allowed himself to be moved, but stuck his head out from behind his father’s back, still glaring, and stuck his tongue out at Touya for good measure.

Natsuo, for his part, was stood apart from the others, almost at the end of the corridor. His face was wary, glancing between Enji and Touya with a complication expression.

His eyes met Touya’s, and he looked away, guilty. His arms rose to cross in front of his chest, protecting himself.

Ever the outcast, Touya thought viciously.

“Well, have you had a good enough look now?” he drawled. “I’m not here to put on a show for you. Are we going to get to the good stuff or not?”

He was treated to four harsh stares, none of them moving. Even Fuyumi looked at him like he was a stranger, an unwelcome intruder to their home.

Looking between their blank, unwavering faces, Touya felt a harsh wrench in his chest of some unexplainable emotion.

Enji was protecting Shouto, but he had made no move to attack him. He stood like stone, a father silently protecting his family.

The message he was giving was clear. Touya was unwelcome, an outsider, not even worth the effort to hate.

The anger surged in him, and he stood his ground, fists clenching.

“What’s wrong, old man? Don’t have the guts to fight me on your own turf? Is it bringing up bad memories? Too much like old wounds? Why won’t you just man up and FIGHT ME!” he screamed.

Enji stayed silent, looking down at him sternly.

He turned his head to Fuyumi.

“Is he hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He didn’t really fall far enough for it. He’s drunk, though.”

If anything, Enji’s expression turned even more disapproving at that.

“Shouto, go inside and stay in your room until I say so,” he said. “Fuyumi, Natsuo, we are not to be disturbed, is that clear?”

They both nodded. Shouto turned obediently towards the house and left without a word, Fuyumi and Natsuo following.

That left Touya alone with the man he had vowed to kill, in the place he wished never to return.

They had faced each other in public, of course, in streets and cities, on rooftops and buildings and stony ground, surrounded by flames and rubble and a monstrous, twisted creature, but this was different.

This was home, or was once. This was where it all began, and where it would end.

Enji stood facing him, face calm. His arms were crossed, but it seemed more of a casual, centering pose than aggression.

He was not treating Touya like a villain, he realised. His pose looked exactly like a disapproving father finding his child returning home drunk after a party.

Well, tough. There was a hell of a lot more to it than that. Touya was not going to get out of this with nothing more than a scolding and grounding, and he neither wanted nor expected to.

“Well? You’ve got the kids away from big bad brother Dabi, so it’s just you and me. Can we fight now? I’m getting bored, old man.”

Enji took a measured breath. His stance shifted slightly, as though he was about to attack.

In another world, perhaps he would have. Perhaps he would have given Touya the fight he wanted, trading punches and kicks and balls of flame in the garden, calling the attention of the neighbours, giving him the audience he so desired.

Perhaps he even would have won, managing somehow to get the better of Enji, leaving his father as a corpse on the ground while he reined triumphant, if he somehow evaded capture afterwards.

Perhaps he would have run free, to return to the League crowned with victory. Then again, perhaps he would have been arrested then and there, to be put on trial and found guilty, condemned to spend the rest of his life in Tartarus, as was any captured villain’s fate.

But this was none of those worlds, and Enji was not the man he was twelve years ago. He was not going to rise to this. He had changed, was changing, and he was going to prove it to Touya.

He turned around and took a resolute step forward, cutting off all the numerous potential futures and what-might-have-beens.

“Follow me,” he ordered.

It was a huge risk. Touya could very well take the opportunity to launch an attack on his unprotected back, incinerating him right then and there.

Enji had to believe that he wouldn’t, that he would at least take the chance. If not, he was beyond saving anyway, and whatever happened, happened.

However, the gamble paid off, and Touya was so stunned that he did as ordered, almost reaching down to remove his boots before realising what he was doing.

“What the hell?!”

Enji gave no explanation. He almost collapsed from relief, and only through sheer force of will did he manage to keep walking steadily further into the house, forcing Touya to follow, if only out of shocked curiosity.

He barely had time to take in the sight of the house before Enji stopped before a plain wooden door.

“Get inside.”

He slid the door open, revealing the room Touya never wanted to see again.

Well, that explained something, at least.

“Huh, you remodelled the place,” he remarked snarkily. His heartbeat started to pick up with the memories of the last time he had stood in this room.

“Yes. I made a few improvements, too,” Enji replied. “One of which being that the walls, floor and ceiling are all fireproof.”

“Huh? How sensible.”

Touya felt as though he was in a trap, but part of him was alight with excitement. Fireproof meant that he could do whatever he wanted. There was nothing holding him back this time.

Enji pushed him forwards until he stood in the middle of the room.

Touya felt a grin spread across his face, and he squared up, ready to finally fight.

“You will stay here until you sober up,” Enji said instead, stepping away from him sharply.

“What the fuck!" Touya burst out.  "You can’t back out of this that easy, fucker!” he glared at Enji, making ready to attack.

He charged towards Enji, expecting to finally get the fight he wanted, deserved.

Instead, Enji countered him easily, crouching slightly and rolling him over one shoulder before throwing him forward until his back hit the wall, where he slid down.

Strangely, there was no violence behind the throw. It was as if Enji was merely demonstrating a judo move, like Touya was nothing more than a training dummy.

Before he could even get to his feet, Enji stepped out of the door, sliding it closed. Touya heard the sound of a lock twisting, trapping him inside.

“What the hell! Come back and fight me, coward!”

No matter how much Touya yelled, with increasing obscenities, there was no reply. He heard Enji’s footsteps retreating down the corridor, getting fainter and fainter, until he was left with nothing but his own breathing.

He was alone, in the room that held far too many memories, which no amount of new wood and paint could erase.

Just what the hell was going on?

Enji entered the lounge again to find his children there sitting tensely. Fuyumi jumped up when he entered, her face pale.

She scanned him worriedly. “That was awfully quick,” she commented. “Did you even fight?”

She blushed and looked down, raising her hands. “Wait, not that I want you to fight, obviously. But he’s made it pretty clear he wants to kill you, so I kind of thought you…would.”

Enji shook his head. “I am not going to pander to his whims,” he said. “For now, I have locked him in the dojo, where he will stay until he’s sober enough to think clearly.”

Natsuo let out a disbelieving bark of laughter at that. “What, so we’re just going to keep him there like a prisoner? What will you do when he gets out and goes for us all?”

Fuyumi looked between the two, disapprovingly. “Natsu,” she warned. Turning back to Enji, however, her expression relented only slightly.

“I, um, I do kind of agree with him, though, dad,” she said. “He’s not like us. He won’t just calm down and come out peacefully. He never did before, and he really isn’t going to now. I don’t mean to criticise you at all, but I just don’t understand what you’re doing.”

Enji sighed deeply. He walked over to the nearest chair and sunk down into it, running a hand across his face.

Suddenly, he looked very tired, and defeated.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I could go there right now and give him the fight he wants, but that would do neither of us any good. He wants me dead, and I accept that, but he wants theatrics and an audience for it. It isn’t enough for him to simply beat me, he wants the world to know that he’s done it.”

Fuyumi and Natsuo shared a shocked glance at their father’s words, but Enji continued.

“I’m not proud of how things have turned out,” he said, wearily. “I’m well aware that this is a temporary situation, and I’m doing nothing but making it worse, but the truth is I simply have no idea what to do. That man there is a villain. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve achieved, my position and my title, all of it says that I should leave him there and contact the commission, who would turn up here with an entire team and take him straight to Tartarus. Hell, I should be doing it myself.”

He buried his face in his hands, looking more vulnerable than Fuyumi, Natsuo or anyone else had ever seen.

It was terrifying, but the two were frozen, unable to say anything in the face of such defeat from the man they always knew to be a bastion of strength.

“I can’t go in there again,” they heard Enji mutter. His voice sounded broken, choked almost. “I ought to see him as a villain, as Dabi, but looking at him there all I could see was my son. Touya. My boy.”

His voice dissolved entirely, and Fuyumi and Natsuo could only watch as he broke into sobs.

Unknown to them all, a small shadow peeked into the room, and, seeing them all occupied, padded silently along the corridor towards the dojo.

Touya looked up when he heard the sound of the lock turning, then a small voice huffing in effort as the door slid open, revealing Shouto struggling to move the heavy weight of the wood.

He managed to slide it open enough to allow him to enter, then pushed it shut again, his socked feet slipping on the wooden floor.

When the door finally shut, Shouto let go, and turned to face Touya. His face was still stony, but he walked across the floor to stand in front of him, feet spread and hands on hips childishly.

Touya merely stared up at him dispassionately.

“Come to plead for my freedom, brat? Or have they sent you in the futile hope of appealing to my better side? I don’t have one.”

“No,” Shouto answered. He sat down in front of Touya, proper posture and all.

He then ruined it by leaning back until his hands touched the floor, peering at Touya almost curiously.

“I still hate you,” he said conversationally. “You’re and idiot and a meanie, and I’m not sorry that dad locked you in here. You deserve it.”

Touya didn’t answer, but raised an eyebrow in bored insouciance.

“Did you come here just to insult me? Cuz you could use some work,” he said.

Shouto stared back at him.

His face remained impassive for a moment, before changing into more anger than Touya had ever seen.

“Dad is crying because of you,” he said. “I didn’t even know he could cry until a few days ago. But a few nights ago he came into my room and hugged me and cried and said he was sorry, and I believed him. He’s really trying to be better, and you’re ruining it.”

He glared at Touya with white-hot ire, more than any child should be capable of.

“He’s trying,” he repeated. “He even let me stay with you, when you’re a villain. He could have called the commission to come and lock you up and none of us would ever see you again, but he didn’t, just because I wanted to see you. He didn’t think you would hurt me, because despite everything you’ve done, you’re still my big brother.”

He sat forward again, hands on his knees as he kept his eyes solidly on Touya.

“Now I wish he had, because you’re nothing like the Touya I remember. Dad is crying because he knows you want to kill him, and he doesn’t want to have to hurt you. He doesn’t want to hurt any of us ever again, so he locked you here because he doesn’t know what else to do. You’re worse than he ever was, because he wants to be better, but you just want to stay here like an idiot.”

Touya was, for once speechless.

Shouto looked around the room, eyes picking out the places that were once scorched beyond repair, now pristine, covered and rebuilt until no trace of the past remained.

“You asked me how much I remember of that night,” he continued. “I remember all of it. You know what else I remember?”

He leaned in to Touya, eyes burning.

“I remember that you started it,” he said, his voice malicious. “It was you who kept going. If you’d just stopped arguing, dad wouldn’t have got so mad. I’m not saying that he was totally innocent, because he wasn’t, but you were equally wrong.”

At this point, Touya didn’t think he could answer even if he wanted to, and Shouto knew it. With the final nail in the coffin, he said,

“Every one of us has forgiven him. We believe he can change. You’re the only one whose clinging to the past. I was there that night too, and so were all of us. So if all of us can change, then maybe dad’s not the one in the wrong. Maybe it’s just you, nii-san.”

As if on cue, the door banged open, revealing Enji, red-faced and with concern written over his face.

“Get away from him, Shouto.”

Shouto stood up obediently and turned to him, smiling widely.

“Oh, no, dad, it’s ok. I was just talking to nii-san, but I’m done now. I don’t think he’s going to fight any more. He’s not going to hurt me.”

Touya rose up suddenly, filled with furious anger.

Shouto didn’t even turn around, but held his hand behind his back. Touya was engulfed in a wave of ice before he could even move.

“Didn’t you pay attention to the game, nii-san? I can use my fire and ice,” Shouto said calmly.

“I think you’re right, dad, he needs to stay here a bit longer,” he said.

Touya struggled futilely. He couldn’t move his hands enough to summon enough flames to melt the ice.

“How the hell are you this strong, fucking brat,” he spat.

Shouto turned his head from where Enji had swept him into his arms.

“I trained, lots and lots,” he said. “Lots of people helped me. You wouldn’t know, because you won’t let anyone help you. We’re trying, but you won’t let us.”

“That’s enough, Shouto,” Enji said. He put him down, and Shouto crossed his arms, annoyed.

“but-“

“Enough.”

Shouto quietened down, sulkily.

Behind him, Natsuo and Fuyumi had come rushing up too, slipping past Enji to stare at their brother.

“So, what, you’re just gonna leave me here?” he said.

Enji sighed deeply.

“What do you want us to do?” he asked.

“Fighting to the death would be nice,” Touya shot back.

“No-one is killing anyone,” Enji said.

He took a deep breath and walked into the room until he stood before Touya. He made no move to melt the ice, simply staring down at his son.

His eyes searched his face, so different from his own, yet made from the same mould.

“What happened to you?” he murmured.

“You know fucking well what happened,” Touya shot back. “You were there, weren’t you? You did this. You made me this way. This is all your fault.”

Many, many times, he had imagined this. Every time, he had imagined screaming it, letting his rage and pain show in full, and yet now, when it came to it, he could only let the words fall as facts, like a broken record.

“So I’ve been told,” Enji said. “I accept that. I have caused you more pain than anyone should have to go through, and for that, I can only apologise. Somehow, I doubt there is any way on earth you would accept that, though.”

“No shit,” Touya said, again.

The anger came back, tainted with emotions he hated himself for still feeling.

“So, what, I’m just supposed to accept it?” he spat. “Just forgive you, have a good cry, kiss and make up, is that it? Just say I’m sorry too and we’ll all be one happy family again? I DON’T THINK SO.”

The ice was slowly beginning to melt, and he channelled his flames to his hands, waiting until he could move them.

“They might forgive you,” he said, jerking his head to his siblings. “But I won’t. I can’t. See, Shouto doesn’t care about his scar, and those two never had it bad to begin with. But me? Look at me. LOOK AT ME. Do you think there is a single person out there who would look at me and see anything other than a monster?”

He ignored the look of sadness on Enji’s face, continuing his rant.

“I didn’t get to just walk away from you and live my life. I got to spend months fighting to survive. My skin is held together by pieces of metal like I’m some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. It hurts, real bad, you know? Like my skin is stretched, and it’s gonna fall off any minute. It does, sometimes. It hurts so bad I can’t remember what it’s like not to live every single second in this pain. The only parts that don’t hurt are because the nerve endings were burnt beyond repair. It’s pretty amazing I’m even alive, that’s what the doctors said. The same ones that worked in the same hospital as mom.”

He grinned at seeing the shock on his family’s faces.

“Oh yeah, I found out about that, too,” he said. “I bet you didn’t want me to know, but I found out. Real good to know, that was. Did she know that while she was locked up for burning one of her sons, the other was dying several floors above her? Bet that was fun to try and cover up. Worked, though, but then what good is being number one if you can’t cover up a little domestic abuse?”

Enji remained silent, staring down at Touya with a carefully controlled expression.

Touya’s lips twisted into a sneer. “You don’t even care, do you. You spout promises about changing, about being better, but you don’t even have the guts to face me. I will never forgive you. I’d rather die. You can’t change the past, and I’m the one stuck like this.”

He looked at the scar on Enji’s face, now healed and clean.

Touya had stood and watched as it was inflicted, and crowed in glee as he watched the blood streaming down his father’s face.

Don’t you dare die on me, he had told him. Only Touya had that right.         

“Is it nice, having a scar?” he asked. “One tiny little scar, all healed up nice and clean. Did it feel good, being a hero and saving the city? Poor Endeavor. It must have hurt. I’d say now you know how it feels, but you really don’t. You never will. Not unless I make you!”

With that, he wrenched his hand free, summoning a ball of flame to his hand.

Enji sidestepped it swiftly, grabbing Touya’s wrist and forcing it behind his back easily.

Touya struggled futilely, raising his other hand. Enji caught that too, and bent him forward, pulling his hands tightly together until tears came to his eyes from the pain of the forced position.

Like that, he could see the faces of his siblings, blurred by tears.

“Hah. So this is it, is it? You’re not even gonna fight me,” he said.

“No. I’m not giving you what you want, Touya,” Enji said.

“DON’T say my name,” Touya spat. “I’m Dabi.”

Enji sighed. “While you are in my house, I will call you by your name,” he replied calmly. “You want a repeat of the past. Well, then, Touya, you cannot have it both ways.”

“You-fucking-“ Touya struggled to get free, only succeeding in wrenching his shoulders even more.

How the hell did the man have so much strength?

“I have fought far stronger enemies than you, Touya,” Enji stated. “And won, or do you not remember? You were there, weren’t you?”

Giving him back his own words did nothing to stop Touya’s anger, especially not when Touya could say nothing against it.

Of course, Touya’s strength could not compare to that of the thing that he had watched his father fight.

He, and all the city, had watched as Enji flew the Nomu higher and higher into the sky, willing to die along with it if only he could stop it.

Touya felt the first stirrings of defeat. He was in a flameproof room, held down by a man far stronger than he could ever be, and with a boy who, even at ten years old, had greater control of  his quirk than Touya ever had.

He couldn’t win.

Finally, he realised that it was futile. Whether now or at the end of the plans that the League had spent so long preparing, it would all end the same.

The best he could hope for would be to go out in a literal blaze of glory. Even if he escaped somehow now, there was no way his family wouldn’t turn him in, giving his information to the authorities. If they didn’t, Keigo certainly would, if only to save his own skin.

With his identity revealed, Shigaraki and the League would turn against him, and even he wasn’t stupid enough to face off against a man who could crumble him to dust with a single touch. Shigaraki would likely relish the excuse, having never truly accepted working with Touya in the first place.

Even Tartarus wasn’t safe. All for One held power behind the scenes, and Touya would likely find himself dead within days. Loose ends and all that.

He stopped struggling and went limp.

A broken, psychotic laughter broke free from him, growing louder until he could barely breathe.

He barely felt as Enji lowered him to the ground, shaking him in concern.

“Touya. TOUYA. BREATHE,” he ordered.

Touya only laughed harder. “Now you care,” he wheezed. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

The tears streamed down his ruined face. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “They’ll kill me anyway if they find out who I am. You might as well kill me now. What are you waiting for?”

“I told you, no-one is killing anyone,” Enji said, relief evident in his voice as Touya fought to keep his breathing under control.

“Have you met the League?” Touya said. “Shigaraki’s killed people for looking at him funny before. I’d be dead before I could say hello.”

He laughed again, raising his hands to cover his face.

“What’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be like this. I’m Dabi. I should be killing you, not…not this.”

He felt Enji’s arms cover him, and didn’t even have the strength to resist.

“It takes greater strength to admit you are wrong than to keep fighting.”

“Easy for you to say, old man.” Touya couldn’t be bothered trying to find the anger to retaliate any more.

God, he was so tired.

“This is so stupid,” he muttered. “I wish I had died. It would have been so much easier.”

“Never say that,” Enji said, voice dark. His arms tightened around Touya, as if he could keep him alive through sheer will.

“As long as you’re alive, you can change. I am proof of that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Touya was aware that he sounded like a child, and didn’t care.

“Do you seriously think you can, what, hug the evil out of me? It doesn’t work that way.”

“Oh, I think it does,” Fuyumi’s voice chimed in. She moved towards them, dropping onto her knees and wrapping her arms around Touya.

“Please, just give us a chance,” she said.

He could feel her tears hit his skin, burning it with her warmth.

“I missed you so much, To-nii,” she said.

Hearing that stupid nickname made something dissolve in Touya’s chest. He blinked rapidly, feeling more tears come to his eyes.

“Why won’t you get it?” he asked. “I can’t be forgiven. I don’t deserve to be. I’ve killed people. I’m not a hero. I don’t want to change.”

“Then why didn’t you run, as soon as Keigo dropped you?” Fuyumi countered, still hugging him. “You could have run. You could have fallen at any time, if him bringing you here was so bad.”

Enji suddenly withdrew, giving his daughter a sharp look.

“Keigo? What does he have to do with this?” he asked.

Fuyumi bit her lip.

“Um, it’s nothing. Forget I said that,” she said hurriedly.

She shot a frantic look towards Natsuo, eyes pleading. He took the hint and came over, sighing deeply.

“I’m with Touya here. Hugging it out won’t solve anything,” he said.

Fuyumi gave him a disappointed look.

“That said,” Natsuo smiled weakly, “I’d really like to have a big brother again. It’s kind of annoying having to be the oldest.”

He held out a hand to Touya, who looked at him with a complication expression.

Eventually, however, he seemed to come to a decision and took it, heaving himself to his feet.

“But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,” Natsuo said shakily, grinning and throwing himself at Touya and wrapping his arms around him, tears streaming down his face.

“Please, come home, big brother,” he said. “I don’t want to be the only who sees this family for how crazy it really is.”

Touya’s arms remained hanging limply at his side for a long time, with Natsuo clinging to him, wetting his shoulder with tears.

Slowly, haltingly, Touya’s arms rose, until he clutched his little brother like a lifeline.

Natsuo let one arm go, reaching out towards the door.

As if waiting for the moment, Shouto took the cue and barrelled towards them.

“Nii-san!” he cried, sobbing.

He hit into Touya with enough force to send them reeling backward, only Enji’s body catching them.

“Please stay, nii-san, please. I’m sorry I said you were mean. You can be good again, too, I promise. We’ll help you. Shigaraki won’t get you, none of them will. I’ll beat them for you. Me and Izuku and Bakagou and all of us. We’ll stop them all, even All for One. You don’t have to worry. We’ll keep everyone safe.”

Shouto clung to him, staring up with tearful yet resolute, hopeful eyes.

“You’re not alone,” Fuyumi said. “You never were. We’ve all made bad choices, but it isn’t the past that defines us. It shapes us, but it’s what we do in the future that counts.”

“Man, you’re all so dramatic,” Touya said, the words slightly muffled by the sheer number of arms surrounding him.

“We’re trying to help you, idiot,” Natsuo punched him slightly. “The least you could do is be grateful.”

He was chuckling even through his tears, and Touya could only stand there, helpless to the feeling of his anger dissolving in him, as though the weight of the last twelve years was slowly lifting from his shoulders.

“I think that’s enough,” a soft voice came from the doorway.

The arms surrounding Touya withdrew enough for him to see the speaker.

Rei stood at the entrance to the doorway, Keigo standing behind her with a weak smile.

“Please, don’t be angry,” Rei said, motioning Keigo forward. “I couldn’t have come here without his help. He’s told me everything.”

She held out the letter, pressing it to her chest as though it was a priceless treasure.

“I read every word, Touya,” she said, stepping forward slowly. “I cried, a lot. But every word was only what I’ve told myself, many, many times. You’re right. I made many mistakes. I could have saved all of you from a lot of pain and suffering. I didn’t, because I was a coward.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she kept speaking, eyes fixed on him.

“I’ve accepted my faults. I’ve tried to change, and I can see now that there was so much I should have done, could have done. But the thing is, I don’t think I would change anything, even if I could. I deserved what happened to me, and I’m so grateful to be here. It took time, but look where we are now.”

She smiled at them all, her face beaming with pride.

“Fuyumi, you’re an amazing teacher, and I love hearing you telling me what the children do. Natsuo, you’re working so hard, and I’m so proud of you for doing what you want. And Shouto,”

Her tears spilled over, reaching out her arms. “I’m so proud of you, Shouto. You’re going to be the best, I just know it.”

Her eyes landed back on Touya.

“But you, Touya, you could be the greatest, if you wanted. I’m so sorry, and I could spend every day of my life telling you that, but it’s not enough to come from me. You have to believe it yourself, and if you don’t, if you decide that you just can’t forgive any of us, that’s ok. We can’t make you. All we can do is try to prove it to you, every single day.”

Her expression turned stern, like an angel.

“But you have to be here to see it, Touya. I believe there’s still good in you. The man who wrote this letter is angry, and he has every right to be, but underneath it I can still hear the boy who I gave birth to, who I held and watched as his life slipped away in my arms.”

The tears streamed down her face, but it didn’t stop her.

“I was devastated when I found out that you were here with me, all that time, and I never knew. I would have gone up there and spent every moment praying for you to live, to stay with you until we could leave. Maybe things would have gone differently. I can’t say it would have been better, but perhaps we could have made things work.”

She shook her head. “We can never know what might have happened. But we can make things work now. I’m willing to try. So is your sister, and your brothers. Even-‘ her voice hitched slightly, but she carried on bravely ‘even your father. So please, baby, try. For me, for all of us, but most importantly-“ she stopped in front of him, and reached up a hand to cradle his face-

“for you.”

She stroked his cheek, crying as she felt the scars for the first time.

“I don’t care what you look like. You will never be a monster to me, Touya. You’re my son, and I love you.”

She wrapped her arms around him, her head barely reaching his shoulder.

Touya was surrounded by the people who loved him. Him, when they had more reason to hate him than anyone else.

From across the room, his eyes met Keigo’s, who stood in the entrance awkwardly, unsure.

“Come over here, Keigo,” Enji said.

Slowly, jerkily, he did as he was told.

When he was close enough, Natsuo and Fuyumi surprised him by grabbing him.

“Family hug!” Fuyumi cried.

“I-I’m not-“ Keigo protested.

“Oh, yes you are,” Fuyumi refuted. “Natsu’s girlfriend isn’t here, and neither is Izuku, but you’re a part of our family now, too.”

Rei smiled at him. “I can’t thank you enough, Keigo,” she said, lifting an arm to embrace him too. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and for Touya.”

Keigo blinked, before chuckling in surprise as he felt tears come his own eyes.

“Wow, guys, is this what you’re like behind closed doors?” he joked. “If I’d known, I’d have worked harder as a hero.”

He looked up at Enji, his expression faltering slightly as he took in the stern face.

He gulped, frozen for a moment, until Enji’s face relaxed.

“We have a lot to talk about, it seems,” he said. “But thank you. Whatever you have done to my son, it seems I owe you more than I can say.”

“Really bad choice of words,” Touya muttered.

Keigo’s face went red, and Fuyumi gasped.

“You-oh my god, I don’t even wanna know,” Natsuo said, shocked.

Shouto seemed thankfully oblivious, looking up at them all with a confused expression.

He was too happy to question anything, revelling in the sensation of being surrounded by his family.

He suddenly ruined the moment by his stomach rumbling.

Rei let Touya and Keigo go, laughing gently.

“Are you hungry, baby?” she asked.

Shouto bit his lip, then nodded.

“Well, I think we all need something after that,” she said, smiling. “How about some tea, and I’ll see what I can make.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Fuyumi said. “I’ll help, mom. I’m really good at making tea now!”

“I know you are, dear,” Rei smiled. “Why don’t you all go into the kitchen, and I’ll join you in a moment.”

Her eyes had strayed from her children to her husband, a soft, tentative smile on her face.

Fuyumi took a glance between her parents, and got the message. Taking hold of her brothers’ arms, she steered them towards the door. Touya hung back, and with a long glance Fuyumi let him go, nodding.

“Keigo, you come too,” she said brightly. “You’re a guest, so you don’t need to help. Now we can have the dinner I promised. Do you have a favourite food?”

Keigo was nothing if not quick on the uptake, and replied. “Well, I actually really like kaarage,” he said, chuckling.

Fuyumi gasped. “Cannibal!”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. How about hotpot instead?”

“Good choice. It is cold outside. Shouto, why don’t you show Keigo your room? I bet he’d love to see all your hero figures!”

“Yeah! I’ve got lots! Come on, Keigo-nii!”

The chatter of voices got slowly quieter and quieter, until it was just Touya, Rei and Enji left in the room.

They were quiet for a long moment, before Rei spoke.

“Well, it’s been a long time since it was just the three of us,” she said gently.

She took a deep breath, then stepped up to Enji.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. “I’ve always kept them. I knew you still cared. I never doubted it, not once.”

Enji seemed frozen. His arms twitched by his side, too scared to move.

Rei made the move for him, reaching out to take his hand. Slowly, she brought it to her chest, cradling it.

She looked up at him with a heart-wrenching expression of love.

“We’ve gone so wrong,” she said. “I think it’s time we start doing things right, don’t you?”

Enji could only nod helplessly. “Yes,” he whispered breathlessly.

Rei gave him the most breathtaking smile he had ever seen.

Enji couldn’t hold it back any longer, and burst into tears. Rei reached up to him, arms winding around him in a loving embrace.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I forgave you long ago. I love you, Enji.”

“I love you too. I always did, I was just such a fool,” he said, uncaring of the tears that rolled down his cheeks. He looked towards the ceiling, crying. Rei shushed him, murmuring words of comfort and love.

Touya stood to the side, not knowing what to do.

After a long moment, Enji reached out an arm, mirrored with Rei.

“Come here, son,” Enji said, choked.

Touya stumbled forward, almost collapsing into his parent’s arms. He took a deep,shuddering breath, feeling his body relax and finally feeling safer than he thought he ever had in his life.

They stood like that for uncounted moments, mother, father and son, simply embracing, as twelve years of pain dissolved with their tears.

People could change, and things could get better.

It seemed like something out of a fairy tale, but it was true.

It wouldn’t be easy. It would be indescribably difficult from now on, but it wasn’t impossible. They weren’t alone, after all.

This was just the start.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Touya sat at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee and bitterly wishing that the previous day had never happened.

He had hoped to sneak out and leave as though nothing had happened, but his family clearly knew him too well.

Hawks had left soon after dinner, promising to return in the morning and explain everything, while Touya was treated to what amounted to house arrest.

It was too tiring to think any more. He had never been one for grand plans – he left that to Shigaraki and Kudogiri, and they were hardly geniuses- but now, sitting in his childhood home with his future in utter disarray, he realised the error of a single-minded goal.

Take down Endeavor, and make him pay.

Obviously he had known that there was very little chance of getting away with it even if he had managed it somehow, but he hadn’t really thought about what would come after.

He supposed, thinking about it now, that he had stupidly imagined that the League would have congratulated him, for taking down the number one hero, their greatest threat. In the midst of their victory, he would have been an asset to them, and it would have worked out somehow.

He realised now that he had only ever been a means to an end for them. Even if their plan went ahead, even if they defeated the heroes and the kids and he managed to put an end to Endeavor, he would probably have outlived his usefulness then and there. With his goal achieved, Shigaraki would likely take no chances in reducing him to a pile of smoke-scented ash in a heartbeat, probably making some remark about the Flame Villian becoming ash himself.

Well, screw him.

For the immediate future, Touya had more important things to worry about. Shouto-shaped things.

None of them were entirely sure how much, if any, of his memories would remain once he was back to normal, and so they were all on edge until the truth was revealed.

Right now, Touya appeared to be the only one up, and the silence of the room was deafening.

Enji was up. Even a family reunion wasn’t enough to stop him from going on his morning run.

Touya wondered if there was anything that would stop him. The apocalypse, maybe. Even then, he’d probably consider it a good warmup.

He heard a faint shuffling that sounded like someone stumbling towards the kitchen, and braced himself for whichever family member it would be.

To his luck, it was Fuyumi.

He felt himself relax slightly, frowning as he realised that he had even tensed in the first place.

To her credit, she simply peered at him muzzily, still not entirely awake.

“Oh, so you are here,” she muttered.

She proceeded to ignore him as she busied herself making tea and getting a bowl of cereal. A few minutes later, she took a seat opposite him.

Once she had finished eating, she took a long sip of tea, sighing happily.

“Ok, I’m awake now,” she declared.

Touya raised an eyebrow at her. “You haven’t changed,” he remarked.

Fuyumi shook her head. “Nope. And being a teacher doesn’t make it easy, either. You?”

Touya shook his head too. “Don’t sleep much. During the day, sometimes.”

Fuyumi nodded, smirking slightly as she gave him a once-over. “Vampire.”

“Nerd.”

“Emo.”

“Prep.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a prep, you jerk,” she said, affronted.

Her eyes lit up with a thought. “Hey, we can be that meme!” she said. “You know. Nerd, prep, jock, goth.”

Touya resolutely pretended he had no idea what she meant, but his sister was not to be swayed, and collapsed into giggles, only growing harder at his unimpressed stare.

“What’s so funny,” Natsuo mumbled, groggily wandering into the kitchen and yawning. “Fuyu, ‘s way too early to be that awake. Shut up.”

Fuyumi only kept giggling, but eventually calmed down, wiping away a tear.

“Shut up yourself, Natsu. I’m allowed to be happy.”

She stared him down, looking between her brothers with a smile.

Natsuo stared back, before shaking his head and turning to make himself breakfast.

“I’m not happy,” he said. “I’m even more back to being the middle child now, thanks to you,” he said to Touya, slotting himself at the table.

“Well, damn, I’m so sorry I can’t control our birth order, brat,” Touya answered sarcastically.

Natsuo glared at him, the effect exacerbated with the red rim of fatigue around them. It had been a long night for them all, and the tension wasn’t going to go away that easily.

“Oh, stop bickering, you two,” Fuyumi ordered.

To their own surprise, both brothers shut up, making Fuyumi sit back with an extremely smug smile.

“And they said I’d struggle to be authoritative,” she said happily. “Take that, sensei.”

Natsuo rolled his eyes, too tired to argue further, and Touya decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

It felt so odd, sitting here around the kitchen table like they were kids again. The twelve years stood as an elephant in the room, the tension between them all stretched taut-thin like a string about to snap, and they all knew that it would only take one wrong word or move for this fragile illusion of peace to be shattered.

What have I come to, walking on eggshells and waxing poetic, Touya thought.

This was getting to his head. Part of him wanted to scream, to do what he had done all his life and push and push and push until it broke, destroying everything that had happened and run far, far away, never to see them again.

The other part of him, the part long buried, was revelling in this. He could feel the muscles of his cheeks aching with the effort of not breaking out into a smile, the staples in his skin stretching and shifting with the movement of his mouth until they threatened to break free.

Things were far from perfect. For one, Shouto still lay asleep upstairs, unconscious while his body reversed the last of the quirk. Until he did, it was anyone’s guess how much he would remember.

Rei had returned to the hospital; where she would have to stay while she began the long process of getting discharged for good, with weeks and months of counselling and therapy with Enji before she would finally be allowed to come home.

Leaving without permission would not have done her any favours, but when Shouto had worriedly asked her if she was going to get in trouble, she had smiled at him.

“Probably, but I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, Shouto. I’ll do everything the doctors say, and when they say I’m ready, then they’ll let me come home. You have to be good until then, alright?”

Shouto had nodded fiercely, eyes alight with the prospect of having his mother home again.

“I’ll be really good, I promise! I’m gonna go to class and train with dad and be a hero! You’ll see!”

Rei and Enji had shared a look over his head then, tears in their eyes.

“I know you will, baby.”

There was also the matter of the Hero Commission. With Hawks’ cover now well and truly blown, his mission was ruined. Obviously, with Touya’s change of heart, they would surely view it not as a failure, but the valuable acquisition of an enemy, and with him, info.

Touya still hadn’t decided exactly how much to give them. He still hated the heroes. He hadn’t reconciled with them, only his family, and even that was paper-thin at the moment, and would be for a long while.

He and Keigo would have to have a long talk, he thought.

Of course, there was part of him (there seemed to be so many parts of him right now, all conflicted and messy and human, and he hated it) that wanted to dig deep, viciously, and spill every grievance, every hurt he had ever received, from heroes and villains alike, in a tell-all autobiography like the villain in a movie.

He owed Shigaraki nothing. They weren’t allies. There was no loyalty. Nothing tied Touya to him. They were barely even cooperative at the best of times. There was nothing to stop Touya from well and truly throwing him under the metaphorical bus.

Yet he was still against divulging their plans. He had worked too hard over the years to throw it away. This wasn’t a fairytale happy ending, with him giving up the secrets and plans he held in return for getting to ride off into the sunset.

Realistically, the best he could hope for was a plea bargain. He would still probably be sent to Tartarus, and likely for quite a long time, until he was deemed low enough of a threat.

He would have to sit through endless rounds of doctors poking and prodding him, both in body and mind, studying him like an experiment.

Words like rehabilitation and danger to himself and others would be tossed around. There would be those who would call for his permanent incarceration, who would never believe that he could change, seeing only his public image as a villain.

Well, you know his type. It’s in the blood. That sort doesn’t ever repent. He should be locked up, or who knows what he’ll do if he ever gets out.

On the other hand, there would be the do-gooders, the saintly sorts who believed in second chances.

He had a bad childhood. He’s repented, he can change. Give him a chance. Society is equally to blame, you know. The poor man, driven to what he did. It wasn’t all his fault. Wouldn’t you want the chance, if it was you?

Touya wasn’t sure which he hated more.

He lifted the coffee cup to his mouth and grimaced when the cold liquid hit his lip. Sometime during his musing, it had gone cold.

Sighing, he pushed his chair back to get a fresh one.

Fuyumi and Natsuo had gone into the lounge, leaving him on his own. They seemed to understand that he needed to be on his own for a while.

Instead of joining them, he took his mug and walked out to the veranda, sitting down with his feet hanging off the ledge.

He should have been cold in the winter’s chill, but his quirk kept him warm. He sat looking up into the chill-blue sky, endless and cold and so, empty.

His eyes narrowed.

It wasn’t empty. There was a speck high above him, growing steadily larger as it approached. At first a smudge of black, then resolving itself into a mess of red feathers and sand-brown coat.

Hawks landed in front of him with typical flounce, looking every inch the hero. Touya half-expected him to drop to one knee and dig a fist into the ground, shooting a look to the camera with a steely determined expression before breaking out into the grin that made schoolchildren and adults alike swoon and cheer.

Thankfully, he landed far more subtly, simply folding his wings in about a foot or two in the air and dropping to the ground lightly, the thick soles of his boots absorbing the impact.

“Is that coffee?” he said by way of greeting.

“Fuck off, get your own,” Touya answered.

“Rude. I flew all the way here, especially for the delight of your company, and this is the thanks I get for it. Screw you, Dabi.”

Touya’s face twisted, and Hawks backtracked immediately. “Touya. I’m sorry. It’s…”

He trailed off, sighing and running a hand through his hair, ruffled from the wind.

“A fucking massive mess,” Touya finished for him, flatly.

“Yeah.”

Hawks flopped down next to him. Touya rolled his eyes and handed the mug over, and Hawks wrapped his hands around it gratefully.

“It’s cold up there,” he said blankly.

“I’m sure it is,” Touya said. “So?”

Hawks shrugged. “Just saying. It’s freezing."

He blew out a breath, watching as the steam coiled lazily upwards in the frigid air.

"The air is thin, to the point that sometimes I can’t breathe," he said, still breezily conversational. "Sometimes I fly too high, deliberately, until my vision starts to go black and I feel like I’m about to pass out. And I wonder what would happen if I just…let myself fall.”

Touya didn’t answer, taking the mug back from him and sipping absently, feeling the caffeine hit his blood in the way that only just countered the need for nicotine. The tension was even more painful, there, so much that it was almost unbearable, but he knew there was no way that he would be allowed to smoke in the house, or anywhere else. He would just have to deal with the withdrawal himself, as much of a bitch as it was.

He knew where Keigo was going with this, and let him speak. It needed to be said, though neither of them would have said it to each other. Just like a cigarette, the words hung in the air like smoke, dissipating into the cold blue sky above.

“Would it hurt, do you think? If we just let ourselves go. Burn up until there’s nothing left, and we wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. I could fly us away from all of this, and you could burn us both to ashes.”

Keigo looked down suddenly, and allowed himself to fall sideways onto Touya, and turned his head into his shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of smoke.

After a moment, he seemed to decide something, and sat up, breathing deeply.

He slapped both hands on his cheeks, forcing a grin.

“Ok. Sunday morning morbidity gone, I promise. I just wanted to get that out of my system. Now, what’s happening?”

Touya shrugged. He wasn't going to acknowledge Keigo's words. The stress was weighing heavily on  him, and Touya could sense the uncertainly that he couldn't quite hide.

For his own part, he wished he could feel the comfort of a cigarette between his fingers. As it was, he was so tense he felt like he was about to snap, and only Keigo's presence next to him could ground him, even slightly.

“Fuyu and Natsu are in the lounge. M-Rei went back to the hospital. He’s still on his run.”

It would be a long, long time before Touya could acknowledge his parents. Even saying their names made something in his chest feel tight.

Keigo wished he knew what it felt like. Without parents of his own, he had no reference for anything remotely parental, that strangely distant-yet-familiar feeling that Touya was warring with.

What was that quote, he thought? Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

“What about the kiddo?” he asked.

“Still asleep. No idea if he’s back to normal or not,” Touya answered tersely.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

There was nothing he could really say to that. They fell into silence, listening to the sounds of the winter morning around them.

There was the feeling of wrongness again. For everything that had happened, it was just a normal morning. The sun was shining down on the snow, glinting in frozen, prismic shards across the garden. A bird was singing merrily on the fencepost, puffs of breath coming from its beak. There was the faint sounds of traffic as the world went on around them in the distance.

It just seemed wrong, like there should have been something…more. It was frustrating, for there to be just another day. A normal Sunday morning.

The thing was, they had never been a normal family. There had been no lazy breakfasts for them, no laughter as they flipped pancakes and played games and chilled out like other families. Sundays had been the same as any other day for him, an uninterrupted day of training, while Fuyumi and Natsuo finished their homework and stayed out of their way.

A mess, indeed.

Keigo sighed again. “What are we, Touya?”

Touya didn’t want to answer that. Didn’t know how to. Allies was too much, partners was too close. In the eyes of the League, they had been barely less than comrades, if slightly more amenable to each other than towards Shigaraki.

There had always been too much between them. At first, there had been the suspicion and confusion as they slowly began to realise who each other was, then the recognition and uncertainty of what that meant for them.

They hadn’t meant to fall back into familiarity with each other. If either of them had been asked, they would have fervently denied that there was anything going on with them, any more to their relationship than spy and villain, suspicion and distrust and surveillance on both sides. They had to play it up for the rest of the League, pretending to be distant.

Maybe it had been inevitable, after all. By all logic, they shouldn’t have been anything more than distant acquaintances, shocked perhaps at finding each other villains, but able to maintain that distance easily. They hadn’t ever been more than childhood friends for a few years at best, if that.

So why did they end up like this?

Maybe it was inevitable after all. It had started as mere curiosity, lingering glances becoming gazes as they searched for years-lost familiarity in each other’s faces, looking only when the other didn’t, until their eyes met and they looked away, feigning nonchalance.

One look had turned to another, and turned to careful conversations, at first carefully neutral, sounding each other out. The distrust was natural as the League accepted Hawks into their ranks, still firmly an outsider until he began to prove himself.

With the League’s trust gained, Dabi had felt his own shields wearing down. He hadn’t expected to see anyone from his past again, hadn’t wanted to.

If it had been anyone else, perhaps he would have hated them. Perhaps he would have been able to maintain the distance, to stay distrustful and disbelieving, even hating them.

But this was Keigo. The boy he had shared everything with, closer to than he was to anyone else.

Who shared his own doubts and suspicions about heroes, who had held the same thread of hatred towards a society that never fully seemed to accept boys like him, who didn’t know their parents, who seemed just a little too out of control and intelligent for their age.

Too soon, they found the distrust between them dissolving. One night was all it took, talking alone at the bar without the second glances over their shoulders from the rest of the League. From there, Keigo took Touya back to his apartment, where they spent the night drinking and revelling in finding each other again. From there, thing had got...messy. They had had to return to the League and pretend that there was nothing between them, no past, no present and certainly no future.

It was a hard act to maintain. Touya was pretty sure Shigaraki had started to suspect something. Maybe it was fortuitous that this had happened now. Maybe it would have all come to a head later, and all this had simply been the inevitable conclusion, a better option than whatever would have happened instead.

That didn’t leave him with any kind of answer, though.

“Don’t answer,” Keigo said. “It was sort of rhetorical, anyway.” He gave a forced chuckle.

Touya sighed. He set the mug down and stood up, holding out a hand to Keigo, pulling him to his feet and leading the way back into the house.

To his surprise, Enji was in the kitchen, having obviously returned without the two of them hearing. He looked evenly between the two of them, deliberately making no comment about their still-joined hands.

“We need to talk,” he said instead.

Keigo almost shoved Touya’s hand away from himself, clearing his throat nervously. “Yeah, we do.”

“Let’s sit down.”

Enji went into the lounge, not waiting for the two to follow him.

“You might want to know that Shouto is awake,” he began without amble. “He’s back to normal, and his memories remain intact.”

He gave Touya a long stare, looking at him evenly. “He’ll come down when he’s ready,” he said. “He has a lot to process, and it will take time.”

Touya nodded. There wasn’t really anything he could say.

“So, to details, then. Keigo.”

The man in question flinched. “Yeah, I guess I owe you an explanation.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair again. He leant back in the chair, looking to the ceiling as if it could give him the words he needed.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” he began. “The Commission decided they needed someone to infiltrate the League, so they chose me. Probably because I’m the closest in age to Shigaraki, and I can take care of myself.”

He looked steadily at Endeavor, an intense spark in his eyes. “How much do you know about my past?” he asked the man.

Enji blinked. “Your training, you mean?”

Keigo nodded.

Enji returned his gaze just as steadily. “As far as I’m aware, your information is restricted,” he said. “I assumed there was a reason for it. As I’m sure you can understand, I don’t pry into other’s details.”

Keigo couldn’t help chuckling at that. “Yeah, well, thanks for that.” He took a deep breath, swallowing before he spoke again.

“I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood,” he explained. “I grew up in a facility. I don’t know who my parents are, or what their quirks were. As well as going to school, I underwent training to become an elite hero. I wasn’t the only one. There were lots of us, with every sort of quirk you can imagine.

Not all of us made it through the training. We were kept pretty much apart, except when we had to spar against each other. I guess you could call it a boarding school for potential heroes, but way more strict.”

He interlaced his hands, looking down at them instead of the men in front of him.

“I became the top of the class. When I graduated, I was automatically in the shortlist for the top heroes, but I still had to work for it. You know the rest. At any rate, I was the top pick for this mission, and here we are.”

Enji took this in in silence. Obviously, that was a highly condensed version of events, but Keigo had an obvious reluctance to speak about it, and Enji knew it was pointless to pry further, not to mention impolite.

Instead, he simply asked, “This was secret, I assume? None of it was made public even within the Agency.”

Keigo nodded. “No-one outside the Commission was supposed to know. Safety protocol, top-secret, blah-blah. The usual spy stuff.”

Enji nodded in confirmation, and turned his attention to Touya.

“I don’t need to know exactly what your relationship is,” he said. “I don’t much care, and I don’t want to know. All I need to know is how much information you can give us. The commission will protect you both. I can’t give you an answer as to what they will decide to do with you, but I may at least be able to work something out.”

“Even at the risk of your own reputation?” Touya scoffed.

Enji levelled his gaze at his eldest son. “I have always known that one day the truth might be revealed,” he said. “Nothing can stay secret forever. I am willing to accept my mistakes, and whatever sentence I am due from it.  The question is, are you?”

Touya wanted to say no. Obviously not. What, was he supposed to get down on  his knees and repent, confessing his many, many sins and be accepted with open arms back into society? That didn’t happen outside of movies.

Enji seemed to accept his lack of answer, though.

“That wasn’t a fair question, I suppose.”

“No shit,” Touya said, earning himself a steely glare.

“Keigo,” Enji turned to him, ignoring his unruly son.

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. “I’ll be in deep shit with the Commission, but I’ll handle it. Just…back me up, yeah?”

His smile was wavering, but his eyes were determined. Enji nodded. “You have my full support. I suspect the boys will speak up for you as well. From what Shouto tells me, Tokoyami is enjoying his internship, and it’s a little late to change it.”

Keigo laughed at that. “Yeah, he’s a good kid. Speaking of, how will this affect the boys? They need their internships. I don’t want to mess it up for them. They’re all good kids, and they’ve been through way too much already.”

Enji sighed. “I’ll speak to the Agency, and the Commission. With everything that’s happened so far, internships may not go ahead anyway, at least for the next few months. Shouto mentioned that they were focusing on an inter-class competition for a while. I imagine Nedzu wants to keep the children in sight until we can strengthen the security. Aizawa is already nearing a breaking point as it is.”

“Isn’t that just him though?” Keigo said, laughing. “That guy needs, like, a week of sleep.”

As much as Enji wanted to agree with that, he said diplomatically, “Well, he has his reasons. For a single school year, there have been far too many instances. The children’s safety takes priority.”

“Yeah, I know. Well, that’s beside the point. You want to know what Shigaraki is planning, right?”

Keigo shot a look towards Touya, sighing. “I can’t tell you everything. I don’t know how much he actually told me. Touya knows more than me, at least I think so.”

Touya gave a stiff nod, feeling the shred of loyalty he held towards Shigaraki snapping irrevocably as he did so.

“He’s planning something big, really big,” Keigo said, closing his eyes briefly as he imagined the destruction.

“He wants to use the Nomu. There’s more. Way more. He’s working with someone else. I don’t know exactly who, but some kind of scientist, I think. They can make whatever Nomu they want. And-“ he cut himself off, unsure.

“He’s working with all for one,” Touya cut in, his voice dead.

Enji’s brows drew together. “He’s in Tartarus,” he stated flatly. “He doesn’t have contact with anyone.”

“Yeah, well, shows what you know, doesn’t it, old man?” Touya sneered. “The scientist is some guy from his past. He plans to give Shigaraki as many quirks as he can, turn him into a Frankenstein’s monster and set him loose. The guy is barely holding it together as it is.”

“You’re quick enough to turn on him,” Enji noted, impassively.

“He’s pyscho,” Touya said, as if that was explanation enough. “I can kill people just fine on my own. At least I can control it, or did you not make sure of that? But Shigaraki can’t. One touch with his freaky hands and anything he touches crumbles into dust. I’m not stupid. I’m not messing with that.”

Enji narrowed his eyes, obviously wondering. “Is there any condition for it, or is it inherent?” he asked.

Touya blinked, thinking. “It’s his quirk,” he said, stupidly. “His hands can make anything he touches crumble to dust, do you think I’m gonna quiz him on the mechanics of it? I doubt he filled in the registration like a good little hero.”

“He has to touch all fingertips together,”  Shouto’s sudden voice made the men turn to him. He was standing in the doorway with arms folded, glaring at Touya, arms crossed in front of him.

“Ask Izuku, he knows,” he continued, turning to Enji. “He was the one who sat there with Shigaraki’s hand around his throat. He told him, and Izuku wrote it down. He knows everything about everyone, heroes and villains.”

There was a note of pride in his voice. Despite his passive expression, his eyes lit up.

“Really? I’ll have to ask him, then,” Enji mused. “That notebook of his is quite useful, it seems.”

“Of course. He’s better than all of us,” Shouto said simply. His eyes didn’t leave Touya’s face, blank and expressionless, giving nothing away.

Enji gave him a stern look, warning in more ways than one.

For his part, Touya simply stared back at his youngest brother, now much more familiar.

“Shouto.”

The boy ignored his father’s admonition and stepped towards his brother. Enji heaved a sigh, seeming to give up and allow him to do what he wanted.

Shouto stood in front of Touya, staring at him for a long moment. Their eyes bored into each other, so similar.

Shouto’s fist suddenly flew out, punching Touya soundly in the face.

“That’s for trying to kidnap me,” he said.

He did the same with the other hand, wincing slightly as his knuckles caught the staples, splitting the skin.

“And that’s for hurting Izuku.”

He raised his hands again, summoning twin ice and flames and reaching towards Touya.

“Shouto, THAT’S ENOUGH,” Enji warned, voice stern.

“I’m not finished,” Shouto spat.  “Stand up,” he ordered Touya.

Enji stood up, taking a step forward, ready to haul him away bodily if needed.

Touya did as Shouto said, rising to stand and making no other move even as blood ran down the splits in his skin.

Shouto lifted his hands again, and pushed Touya, hard, making him rock back, but he kept his footing.

“And that’s for everything else,” he said.

Just as suddenly, he stood on tiptoe and hugged him tightly.

“And that’s for being alive,” he said, his voice choking.

Touya was left holding him awkwardly, not knowing whether to return the hug or not. 

Shouto didn't seem to care, stepping back after a moment and withdrawing to the other side of the room.

“I still don’t forgive you for the training camp,” he said. “That’s up to Izuku and Bakugou. Izuku will forgive you because he’s like that. Bakugou won’t. It’s a good thing you’re fireproof, because I expect he’d try to kill you if he sees you again, and I’m not going to stop him.”

“Shouto,” Enji warned him again.

“I mean I won’t stop him trying,” Shouto clarified. “If Touya can’t hold his own against someone the same age as me, he’s not much of a villain, is he?”

Enji rolled his eyes, obviously debating whether it was worth lecturing him or not.

“Oh, sniping already. Good going, Sho,” Natsuo said, appearing in the doorway, Fuyumi behind him, her expression long-suffering.

“Can we please leave the fighting until later?” she pleaded. “Better yet, at all, but I know that’s too much to hope for. But can we have one day without it, please?”

“No,” Shouto answered stubbornly.

His face was relaxed, however, and he slowly let a smile break across his face. With that, the tension slowly began to dissolve, and something in the air softened.

Natsuo reached out to ruffle Shouto's hair, drawing him into a headlock.

“Don’t think now that Touya’s here you can get away with anything because you’re the baby, little brat,” he said, rubbing his knuckle into Shouto’s hair.

“Let go,” Shouto protested. “He deserves it.”

“I know he does, but I’m not letting you abuse your position. Just because you’re the favourite doesn’t mean you can play off against us,” Natsu said.

“That’s enough,” Enji ordered. “Natsuo, stop.”

Natsuo released Shouto, taking the opportunity to mess his hair up one last time, grinning at his angry glare and mutterings as he smoothed his hands across his head.

“Shouto.”

Shouto reluctantly looked up at his father, seeing the stern gaze.

“Natsuo is right. What has happened is in the past. Give your brother a chance. You’ve said you’re willing to allow me the chance to prove myself, and I expect you to do the same with Touya.”

“Well, if he apologised, maybe I would,” Shouto said.

“What do you want, a letter in writing?” Touya stood up, irritated. “I’m a villain. Did you expect me to wrap you up in cotton wool and treat you like a princess? Don’t pretend you even knew who I was then.”

“I DID!” Shouto shot back at him, glaring.

Touya blinked in surprise. “What?”

Shouto folded his arms again. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see your face fully. All I could see clearly was your eyes, and I’m only blind in one. I wasn’t sure at first, but then Bakugou described you when we got him back, and I still wasn’t sure, but I began to wonder. So then we went to rescue him and I saw you, and then I was sure. It all fit.”

Everyone stared at him. “And you didn’t think to tell any of us?” Fuyumi asked.

“I didn’t want to, in case I was wrong,” Shouto answered. “I’m good at keeping secrets. The only person I told was Izuku, because I knew he wouldn’t tell anyone. He said I should wait until I was totally sure, because he knew that it would be dangerous if we told anyone without being totally certain.”

“You told Midoriya?” Enji said, a note of something close to horror in his voice.

“Yes,” Shouto said, determined. “He’s even better at keeping secrets than I am. I know he won’t tell anyone. I trust him, dad.”

Enji sighed. “I know you do.”

There wasn't much else he could say. Now wasn't the time to get into it further, though.

Sensing the tension rising again, Fuyumi took the hint. “I think that’s enough. Why don’t we go and get lunch?” she suggested.

“Is that your answer to everything? Bribe people with food to divert their attention?” Touya said snarkily.

“Well, it works,” Fuyumi shot back. “You’re just hangry. You all are.”

“I’m not,” Keigo said.

“You’re a guest,” she said. “Please, whatever you do to Touya, keep doing it. If you weren’t here, I think we’d be missing most of the living room by now.”

Touya raised an eyebrow, but decided that the joke had already been made once. From the way Keigo was determinedly not looking at him, he was thinking the same.  

Fuyumi looked between the two, then threw her hands in the air in frustration.

“Urgh, boys!” she said. “When you’re done finding innuendoes in everything, come and get lunch. Shouto, do something other than being petty and help me.”

Shouto opened his mouth to protest, but he caught Enji’s stern nod and obediently traipsed out after his sister.

Natsuo followed them, hunger winning out, leaving the three men alone again.

Enji sighed deeply.

“We need to continue this conversation,” he said. “But, this is neither the time or place. Keigo, I assume the Commission will come first. Let me know as soon as you’ve spoken to them. I suspect they’ll want to talk to me as soon as possible, and I’d rather get it over with sooner rather than later.”

Keigo nodded.

The air turned solemn. Sensing it, Enji reached out to the two men, clapping a hand on either of their shoulders.

“We’ll get through this,” he promised. “It won’t be easy, not at all. But I promise I’ll do everything in my power for you two.”

Keigo gave him a weak smile.

“Thanks, boss. For what it’s worth, I’ll stick up for you if they try and give you hell, too. After all, if you fall, I’ll get your spot, and I like being number 2. It has kind of a ring to it.”

Enji nodded, allowing himself to smile.

“Touya?”

Touya raised his eyes, looking between his parter/ally/comrade/boyfriend-

What the hell.

He looked between Keigo and his father.

There was something more than acceptance in Enji's eyes, a sense of pride and approval, but most of all, hope.

“Whatever happens, just remember this. You’re not alone," he said. "I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I’m with you. We’re with you, and we’ll get through this, together. ”

It should have sounded unbearably cheesy and unbelievable, but somehow, against all common sense, Touya believed it.