Work Text:
Todoroki Enji wanted to be the number one. But wants weren’t worth much without actions backing them up. He worked as hard as he could, he worked like no one else, but that still wasn’t enough. He was still beaten, destined to be stuck as the second best forever. All Might was untouchable on his pedestal. He was a pinnacle of heroism, so removed from the rest of them in his perfection. He was more of an idea personified, unlike mere mortals, who laboured and endured and bled for the sake of achieving what he so easily reached.
Endeavor realized he wouldn’t be able to beat an idea. He was just a man and he knew his limitations as a hero quite well. His Quirk wasn’t good enough to beat All Might’s endless power and there was nothing he could do to change that.
He still wanted to win. Even more, now that the goal seemed so unattainable. There was a reason he called himself Endeavor. No matter how daunting the task, he wouldn’t give up on it. He just needed to find another way.
All Might was so far away from idea of a human. He didn’t need rest, he didn’t bleed, he was never angry or frustrated, always smiling, smiling, smiling, like if he stopped the world was going to end. Maybe it really would. And that inhuman flawlessness gave Endeavor an idea. What if it was actually All Might’s fatal weakness?
The number one didn’t need anyone. He was alone, Atlas holding up the whole world on his shoulders. He didn’t need help to succeed. He was alone.
Maybe if Endeavor couldn’t beat him himself, he could instead create someone who was better? Someone who had his Quirk, but without the flaws.
All Might was removed from human follies. There was no successor to his brilliance in sight. He never even took a lover.
Endeavor realized he could do this. In the long run, he’d come out on top. And so, he set out on this path.
First, he needed to choose a perfect mother for his masterpiece, someone from whom the successor could inherit a failsafe. A way to keep the fire from overheating him.
Endeavor liked to think he chose the woman carefully. Rei was the best out of many possible candidates. Her ice quirk could counter his fire’s effects in the most efficient way.
However, the truth was more prosaic: from the moment he laid his eyes on her cold, distant beauty, he wanted her for himself. His choice had nothing to do with logic (fire and ice could just cancel each other after all) and everything to do with his desire for a woman that set his blood on fire.
Rei was the perfect wife he wanted – obedient, demure, malleable. She never opposed him, but her real thoughts remained hidden behind the opaque glacial wall that he saw in her cold gray eyes. It didn’t matter to him, as long as she let him do as he pleased with her body.
She was a pretty receptacle for his seed to grow in and bear fruit.
He took her as a wife and began his true work in earnest. There wasn’t a day he didn’t take her to bed at least once. He was diligent and soon she conceived. He provided her with only the best of things – nutrition, doctors, special classes for mothers-to-be, even music that would help in the child’s development. All to ensure his successor would be without a flaw.
After nine months, a healthy boy was born. Wisps of red hair, just like his father’s on the little head. Endeavor was the first to hold him and when the baby opened its eyes, a blue just like his own stared back at him and he knew he succeeded.
Touya was his ignited arrow that would take down the god.
Emboldened by his success, he wasted no time to repeat it. Their deal was two children and it would be useful to have a spare. As soon as Rei was healed up after childbirth, he took her to bed again. That was when she tried to protest for the first time but he would have none of that. If she didn’t have enough rest, he’d hire a maid to help with chores while she concentrated on her most important duty. She then quieted fast and let him do as he wanted, eager to get this over with.
He didn’t have to wait long for results and by the end of the same year Touya was born, the second child joined the family. However, despite doing everything the same as before and even taking on himself a lot of childcaring duties, he must have screwed up something on the way, because this next child was a girl with her mother’s characteristics except for a few red strands of hair.
In the end, he didn’t mind that failure that much. He had Touya and his boy was perfect with the fire Quirk he inherited. While he grew, Endeavor created a training plan which he started on when the boy turned four – the earliest age to begin an effective physical training. Touya took to it like a fish to water, learning from him with such zeal. Everything was just like Endeavor envisioned. His son was going to surpass All Might.
Then he started teaching him how to turn up the heat, make the flame bigger, hotter, more destructive.
That’s when he found out that Touya burned despite his fire Quirk. What he thought was a masterpiece, was actually a defective product from the start. He had his mother’s weakness built in and it became even more apparent when even his hair lost the redness and turned pure white.
Endeavor didn’t want to believe it at first, so he took the boy to doctors, but they all said the same thing. He had to accept that he failed this time and try again.
He blamed Rei, but really, he was the one who made the crucial mistake. He messed the proportions, poured too much of his fire into this creation, when he actually needed to strike the right balance between heat and cold. It was actually foolish of him to expect he could achieve perfection on the first try.
Next time he was more careful, trying not to overwhelm her during the process. He didn’t take personal interest in raising that child too. It was promising, another boy with his mother’s coloring and few red wisps, but Endeavor wasn’t going to invest in him the time he could spend maintaining his second rank until he was sure it wasn’t another dud.
He found out that approach fortunate, as Natsuo took too much after his mother, Quirk included. The only thing he got from his father was his body structure. Another failure then.
They sometimes say fourth time’s a charm. And with his experience Endeavor felt confident he could achieve the balance this time. Rei protested uselessly but gave in to him quickly. After years of marriage, he knew her weak spots too well. And she owed him his successor still.
This time he handled the ingredients with familiarity and a deft touch. He mixed and stirred, heated and cooled and heated again to the sound of Rei’s whimpering and gasps of pleasure.
When the child with the even split between fire and ice was born, he knew that he finally got it right. He hit the jackpot. He had made the true masterpiece he wanted.
The story of his triumph could finally begin.