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“Can I say a bad word?” Kumi asks while Tenko watches her do her homework.
“How bad is it?” Tenko asks, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s not the f-word.”
“Oh. Then, sure.”
Kumi traces the hiragana in her notebook carefully. “Touya Papa’s dad is a dick.”
Tenko chokes on his soda. It’s painful and the gas makes his throat burn and brings tears to his eyes.
“Sorry,” Kumi says, looking up at him.
“It’s okay. And we’ve already established that, baby.”
Kumi shrugs. “Just felt like it needed to be said again. I heard Kei Papa and Touya Papa talking last night. Touya Papa had another nightmare about my quirk burning me.”
Tenko glances at his soda. “Yeah. He’s a dick.”
“You should do vigilante things against him, like we talked about when I was little.”
“You’re still little,” Tenko says with a snort. “And are you still thinking about being a vigilante?”
Kumi shrugs again. “Rumi’s nice. And Kei Papa is good. So maybe being a hero isn’t so bad.”
Tenko hums. “I guess. You’ll have to work hard, though.”
“I’m smarter than everyone in my class already. I’ll get in anywhere if I work properly.”
“That’s my girl. Now do your homework.”
Kumi sighs. “I’m only six. I’m too baby for this.”
Tenko raises his eyebrows. “I thought you were a big girl that’s too old for a silly bedtime. You can’t have both.”
“Ugh.”
Tenko grins at her and turns his attention to the TV, where one of the 1-A brats he once hated is giving an interview.
“So,” the host says, “you’ve told us a lot about your mom — who we all totally want to take us in now, I’m sure — but very little about your father.”
The broccoli idiot, Deku, laughs politely. “Well, I can’t say much. He was in America for most of my childhood.”
“That’s right. You like quirks a lot, yes?”
“Oh, I love them! I could talk for hours! I could probably spend the rest of this segment on them.”
“We know,” the host says, laughing. Tenko vaguely recalls an older episode that was supposed to be a segment of Deku talking about his classmates that turned into forty-five minutes of him going off on several tangents about the host’s quirk. “So, if your mother has a telekinesis quirk, and your father has a fire-breathing quirk, how’d you end up with a quirk like yours?”
“Fire-breathing?” Kumi asks, sitting upright. She glances at the TV and then at Tenko. “Like mine?”
Deku launches into his perfected story about his quirk that Tenko never pays attention to because he knows exactly where Deku got his quirk.
“Yeah, I guess so, baby. Finish your homework, or you’re not getting any ice cream after dinner.”
Kumi goes back to her homework, talking to Tenko as she traces. “Do you think Deku’s dad is a dick too?”
“Oi, I didn’t say you could swear again.”
“Sorry. But do you think so?”
Tenko shrugs. “How should I know? Deku never talks about his father because he doesn’t know him well.”
“Oh, so he’s a deadbeat?”
Tenko frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Hm. I think all old men with fire quirks are d— bad.”
Tenko thinks about All For One and his many quirks, among which are some flame quirks. “Hm.”
“We should annihilate them.”
“Oh, that’s a big word, baby chicken.”
Kumi beams at Tenko. “I read it in a book at school!”
“Clever girl.”
Kumi slaps her book shut. “I’m done!”
Tenko squints at her. “Let me see.”
Kumi groans and opens her book again, turning to the next page and grabbing her pencil.
“I thought so.”
Tenko’s dreams are weird. He dreams about Endeavor and All For One and some kind of Deku look-alike and Touya look-like that, once he wakes up, he deduces were some kind of stand-ins for Touya and the hero’s fathers because he has no idea what they look like.
He lays awake in the dark, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stickers Kumi put on the ceiling, like everyone else’s room.
He can hear soft talking from Touya’s room. Must’ve been another nightmare. He wonders what it was this time. Touya’s fears about Kumi and her quirk, or a memory from his own childhood that he tried to erase.
We should be vigilantes against Papa’s dad. He sounds like a bad hero.
Tenko thinks about Natsuo, who doesn’t like to talk much about his family, but has let slip a few things here and there. Like the fact that his father is Endeavor. And the fact that he had an older brother once that Endeavor trained to death. Literally.
Wait a damn minute.
Tenko sits upright in his bed. It’s five in the morning, but he doesn’t feel too bad about scrambling off his bed and tumbling across the hallway into Touya’s room — he’d heard Touya and Keigo talking. They’re probably both still awake.
“Endeavor?!” he whispers so he doesn’t wake anyone else up. “Really?!”
Touya and Keigo sit up, both bleary-eyed and confused, looking for an intruder.
“Huh?” Touya says when he finds Tenko in the dark. “What do you want, Dustbin?”
“Tenko, it’s ass o’clock in the morning,” Keigo grumbles, collapsing and pulling the covers over his head. His voice is muffled into the pillow when he speaks. “Go back to sleep.”
“Your dickhead dad is Endeavor?!”
Touya stares at him dumbly for a second. “What?”
“What do you mean, what? When were you gonna tell us?”
“Tenko, everyone already knows that. Wait, did you not?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Tenko states and walks out of Touya’s room.
Touya wakes up really quickly and shakes Keigo. “Hey. I think Tenko finally lost it.”
“I’ll deal with it in the morning.”
The front door opens and closes. Touya shoves Keigo. “Wake up. He’s gone outside.”
Keigo whines incomprehensibly as Touya tries to get out of the bed and trips over the duvet.
“Kei, get up!”
Touya wakes the house up in record time. Jin swears he’s going to kill Tenko when they find him. He also says he wishes he took Kosuke up on that offer to sleep over, because Himiko is probably happily snoring away in Iori’s apartment.
Tenko bangs on the front door of the house he finally found with a little help from the internet. “Come out, come out, you little bitch!”
It’s nearing sunrise, so the shitty excuse for a hero should be up.
Endeavor opens his front door to receive a tailpipe to the face. “Ow!”
“You are an evil!” There’s a clang as Tenko hits him again. “Horrible!” Clang! “Good for nothing!” Clang! “Villain!” Double clang!
Endeavor grabs the tailpipe out of Tenko’s hands and stares at it. “Did you wreck my car?!”
“And I’ll do it again!” Tenko stalks to the wreckage that was once a car and picks up a tyre that he promptly hurls at Endeavor, who ducks. The tyre flies through the doorway and shatters something inside.
“Dad?! What’s going on?!”
“Oh, it’s nice to hear that Fuyumi isn’t dead!” Tenko shouts. “Is it because you couldn’t use her quirk?!”
“Who are you?!”
Tenko picks up another tyre.
“Woah, okay, hold on!”
It’s a little amusing to see Endeavor holding his arms out. It’s not amusing enough to stop him from hurling the second tyre at Endeavor, lower this time so it hits him square on the head when he ducks.
“Wow, I am so glad I stayed the night.”
Tenko’s face breaks into a huge grin when he sees Natsuo waving from the doorway, trying to shove Fuyumi further into the house with his other hand. “Hi!”
Endeavor, who’s sitting on the front step and shaking his head, glances up at Natsuo. “Do you know this lunatic?”
“Lunatic?” Tenko shrieks. “Between the two of us, who gave his kid PTSD?!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ooh, use the number plate,” Natsuo says.
Tenko picks up the number plate and throws it at Endeavor. His forehead is turning red now. “That’s for my baby’s father!”
“Who?”
“Oh, how is Kumi?” Natsuo asks.
“She’s great!” Tenko says brightly. “You’re bringing Daichi to the park on Saturday, right? Kumi’s excited to see him again.”
“Yeah. Minami said she has a double shift on Saturday, so I’ll be babysitting all day if Kumi wants to come over after park time.”
“Oh, that’ll make her very happy.”
“What —” Endeavor starts, only to receive a side mirror to the face.
“No one said you could talk!” Tenko yells, pointing at Endeavor.
Fuyumi shoves Natsuo outside and stares at Tenko, glasses askew. “What are you doing? Natsuo, do something!”
“I am doing something. I’m cheering. Hey, do the steering wheel next.”
“Stop!” Fuyumi shrieks as Tenko picks up the steering wheel from the grass.
Before he can throw it, though, two bodies slam into him, toppling him over.
“What is wrong with you?!” Touya yells while Shuichi wrenches the wheel from his grasp. “Attacking heroes is generally frowned upon, asshole.”
“When did you even have time to dye your hair?” Shuichi asks.
“On the way here,” Tenko says.
“Hi, Kumi,” Natsuo calls.
“Hi, Natsu!”
Tenko stares at Touya. “You brought Kumi with you?!”
“What are you doing?” Touya asks instead, letting Shuichi pull Tenko to his feet.
Tenko points at Endeavor. “I’m hitting him with car parts.”
Endeavor sways where he’s sitting.
“Why?”
“Because fire dads are shitty dads. Even Deku’s dad is shitty.”
Touya folds his arms and glares at Tenko.
“Not you, though,” Tenko says quickly. He laughs nervously. “You’re an exception.”
“Is that . . . Hawks?” Fuyumi asks, adjusting her glasses.
Endeavor blinks slowly. “Oh, Hawks. Catch him.”
Keigo tilts his head to one side. “Can you even see straight? Do you know where I’m standing?”
“Of course. You’re right there.”
All of them follow the direction Endeavor points to — a tree in the neighbour’s yard.
“I think you gave him a concussion,” Atsuhiro says.
“Good.”
“No!” Touya yells. “Bad! Attacking heroes is bad.”
Tenko scoffs. “I’m not attacking any heroes. I’m attacking a shitty excuse of a father.”
Fuyumi clears her throat. “Uh, Hawks, who are these people?”
Keigo glances around. “Uh. . .”
“Friends of mine,” Natsuo says. He winks at Tenko.
“Did Endeavor hit you back?” Kumi asks Tenko. “You’re all red.”
“Shhh!”
“Cute,” Jin says, snorting.
“Oh, shut up. At least I can still form coherent sentences. You clam up whenever you see Inaba and you've been on, like, seven dates already.”
“Excuse me,” Fuyumi says loudly. “Can someone explain to me what is going on here? I didn’t have to be up until eight, so I’m very pissed and very confused right now.”
“Ask him,” Tenko spits, pointing at Endeavor.
“I would, but you hit my father hard enough to make him dizzy!”
“Because he’s a shit dad!”
“Oi, enough,” Touya warns.
Kumi tugs on Touya’s shirt. “Can I burn his eyebrows off?”
“First of all, no, he’s immune. Second of all, no, you’re grounded.”
“I didn’t even do anything!”
“You broke Tenko!”
“Hey, aren’t you that vigilante, Noxious?” Fuyumi asks.
“A vigilante?” Endeavor asks. “Where? I’ll arrest them!”
Jin sighs when Endeavor glares at a different tree. “Look what you did,” he tells Tenko.
“And you,” Fuyumi says, pointing at Kurogiri. “You’re with the League, aren’t you? Wait. . .”
Natsuo laughs nervously. “Neesan, I told you already. They’re friends of mine.”
Fuyumi puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at Natsuo. “Do you just let your friends beat your dad up?”
“He beat Touya up first!”
Touya slaps his hand over his face and sighs.
Natsuo and Fuyumi stare at Tenko before slowly shifting their gazes to Touya, who hasn’t dyed his hair in years.
“Now you’ve done it,” Jin says.
“Sor-”
“I do not want to hear another word out of you,” Touya snaps at Tenko. “When we get home, you are making breakfast for everyone and I’m confiscating your controllers for a week. Shu can survive playing on his own for a week.”
Tenko’s mouth falls open.
“I don’t want to hear it. Waking up at the goddamn ass crack of dawn and having an epiphany or whatever is no excuse to cause property damage. Or assault.”
Tenko pouts.
Satisfied, Touya turns around to face Keigo. Before he can say anything, several people start shouting. Touya turns back to see Tenko wearing a smug grin and Endeavor with the car’s spare tyre on his shoulders, looking like he’s about to fall over.
Touya stares at Tenko. “You are grounded! For a month!”
“You can’t ground me! I’m twenty-six!”
“Grounded!” Touya shrieks. “Someone take him home before I twist his ears until they fall off!”
“Am I still grounded too?” Kumi asks as Jin and Shuichi drag Tenko towards Kurogiri for a portal home.
Touya points at Atsuhiro. “You. Take her to school.”
“Yes, sir,” Atsuhiro says quickly, grabbing Kumi’s hand and walking away with her. “Let’s go, princess.”
Keigo pats Touya’s shoulder. “You’re doing great, baby.”
Touya points at Endeavor. “And you! Clean this mess up!”
Fuyumi and Natsuo watch with twin looks of perplexed surprise as Touya takes Keigo’s hand and marches into the portal. The portal and Kurogiri both vanish, leaving the two siblings and Endeavor — still wearing the tyre — in their mess of a front yard.
“Are you crying?” Natsuo asks Endeavor.
“No,” Endeavor lies pathetically.
“What just happened?” Fuyumi mutters.
“You heard him,” Natsuo tells Endeavor. “Clean this up. Neesan and I have to go to work.”