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i.
Touya woke up to Shouto’s empty face staring at him, as if he’d been sitting there the whole time, waiting for him to open his eyes. He wanted to be angry, but Shouto had said “Hello,” before he could even process the fact that he was awake, and he burst out laughing instead.
Or well, he would have, if he’d been able to. All that came out was a hoarse sound, searing pain. He was used to pain - at least, in the first few years of his life. But right now his whole body ached, and it felt oddly unfamiliar.
“Shouto!” came a familiar voice, and the door slammed open. Touya had been too busy convulsing from the pain to see who it was. “Is everything okay?”
“Touya-nii is awake,” Shouto said, and Touya could sense the barest hint of urgency in his voice, though nothing seemed much different. He hadn’t spent enough time with Shouto to be able to recognize it, and yet here he was. Blood, water. The thought made him want to laugh even more. But then: “You should call the doctors, Dad.”
There was a scuffle, some yelling, and then Touya was being whisked away by doctors, but in the seconds it took for them to wheel his bed out of the room, he caught sight of his father near the door. The unmistakable red hair and bright green eyes, the tear stains on his cheeks and the missing right arm. Missing left leg. Touya didn’t remember how that had happened.
It was satisfying enough that he forgot about the pain while the doctors worked on him. Todoroki Touya could live with pain.
Todoroki Touya could not live without Todoroki Enji.
ii.
He wasn’t quite sure how long it had been since he woke up that first time, but between testing and doctors and needles he couldn’t feel, he’d fallen asleep again.
When he woke up, his mother was at his bedside, Natsuo and Fuyumi hovering anxiously behind her. Shouto asleep on a chair in the corner, startled awake by Fuyumi’s cry of “Nii-chan!.” Enji nowhere in sight.
“Touya,” his mother said, grabbing his hand - or at least, where his hand would’ve been, if his entire body wasn’t covered in casts. “Touya, can you see me? Can you recognize me?”
He opened his mouth, debating whether to say anything at all. The words weren’t coming to him, and neither was his voice. Did he even have vocal chords left? He’d burnt away so much of his body, he wasn’t sure what was left anymore. Maybe he didn’t have a body at all, and his consciousness was all that was left of him. Brain in a vat and all that.
Then the door opened, and everyone turned around. Natsuo stepped aside, and Touya got his first proper look at his father, hobbling over to his bed with one leg, one arm, and a crutch.
“Touya,” he said, voice shaking. “You’re awake.”
Touya opened his mouth again. “Dad.”
It came out just fine. No effort, nothing. Still hoarse, but clear enough for him to hear the sound floating through the room to his father, and Enji burst into tears.
Touya’s body eased and his head fell back onto the pillow. He hadn’t even realized he’d been straining to look up. If anyone thought the laugh was a cry, he didn’t really care.
“Touya, eat your food,” Rei scolds. Lunch is sitting on the table, and Touya is too busy babbling about today’s televised fight against the villain to focus on food. In his baby chair, Natsuo wacks his spoon around, sending some of his ground-up pasty rice flying, hitting Fuyumi square in the face. Fuyumi screeches, picks up a fistful of her own rice and tosses it across the table.
There is screaming and yelling, and Enji tunes out of his conversation just long enough to feel a little bit of guilt watching Rei juggle a toddler and a baby, trying to calm down both at the same time. She looks tired, her food is getting cold. Natsuo is having a full-blown crying fit, and Fuyumi looks teary-eyed and sniffly, now mourning the emptiness of her plate.
But then Touya pulls at his sleeve to regain his attention and gives him the brightest smile he’s ever seen on a person. He turns to his still untouched food and picks out the pork from his nikujaga - his favorite - placing it in Enji’s plate.
“Dad, you should eat more so you can be bigger and stronger and all the villains will be afraid of you!”
Enji’s lips pull up against his will and his chest feels tight, his throat choked up. It’s just pork, something they eat everyday, but maybe if love could take physical form, it would be this.
iii.
The hospital was boring. A drag. Touya was tired of his siblings sitting at his bedside, trying to tell him he was getting better, that they were so glad he was alive.
They had no idea what else to say. “I’m glad you’re okay,” or “I missed you so much,” or “I wish things had been different,” - clinging to the past because that was all they knew of him.
But then Touya clung to the past too. He clung to Sekoto Peak, to his training sessions with Enji, to the ease with which he’d been tossed aside and forgotten. It didn’t matter how long it had been - he was a Todoroki, and he’d make sure everyone knew it.
As soon as he could get out of the hospital, that is.
But the hospital wasn’t all that bad either. He’d been here for a couple of months now, not counting the months he’d spent in a coma. His arms weren’t in a cast anymore, though he was still stuck in bed.
Shouto had brought him his laptop, and Touya spent a few weeks scrolling through a few months of Endeavor’s fall from grace - though unfortunately it also came with Shouto’s rise to fame. Maybe that was fine, too. He had to wish the best for his little brother, even if that ‘best’ didn’t lead down to hell. There was still hope. Touya was already at the gates, and Enji halfway down the steps.
But the best part about the hospital was at his bedside right now, looking miserable. Todoroki Enji, looking rather small for someone who generally took up so much space, staring at Touya’s hand as if wondering if he had permission to hold it.
He didn’t. Not yet, at least. Not like that.
“Dad,” Touya said, cutting through the silence. Enji looked up immediately.
“Yes? Are you okay?”
“Aren’t you going to feed me apples?”
There was a pause. “Apples?”
“Yes, apples. The fruit, you know. You’re supposed to feed me fruits so I can recover faster.”
“Oh,” Enji said, looking around. There were no apples around, because nobody had been kind enough to bring him some. Same old disgusting tasteless hospital food, day after day. Not that he would’ve been able to taste the apples either. He didn’t even like apples.
But Enji didn’t know that. What did Enji know about him, really? Enji only knew anything about Todoroki Enji. At least that was one thing they had in common.
“I’ll go get you some,” he said now, grabbing the crutch leaning against the bed. “They should have some at the store downstairs.”
27 minutes later, the door to his room opened and Enji entered with Shouto in tow, holding a plate with two fresh apples and a knife. Touya didn’t bother masking the disappointment, but it quickly disappeared, when Enji sat down with the plate in his lap and the knife in his only hand, struggling to peel an apple he couldn’t hold.
Shouto hesitated behind him for a moment, looked up to meet his eyes. Touya gave his little brother the brightest smile he could manage. Shouto frowned and turned to look at Enji again.
“I’m going to get something from the vending machine,” he announced and left the room.
There was blissful silence. Nothing but the clatter of the knife against the plate as Enji tried and failed to peel and slice an apple. Touya watched, counting the seconds.
At 632, Enji proudly held up one misshapen piece of apple. He’d missed the peel in a bunch of places, and taken half the pulp with the ones he hadn’t. He brought it to Touya’s mouth. “Here you go.”
Touya sighed, dramatically. “Dad,” he said, trying his best to plaster disappointment on his face and failing. Instead, his lips pulled up on their own accord, baring his teeth. “You know I’m not supposed to eat solid food yet.”
Enji blinked, frozen in place. He looked at the apple and then him, not sure what to do.
Touya shook his head and lay back down on the pillow, satisfied. “Some father you are.”
Enji knows from the moment he meets Touya that he’s destined for greatness. Power, prestige. There are things the Todoroki family is meant for - but now there are things Todoroki Enji will change fate for. They will make it. Touya will make it. Enji will die for it if he has to.
Touya is a red-faced, wrinkly little thing in Rei’s arms when Enji first lays eyes on him. She looks tired, which is to be expected from someone who just gave birth, but her face glows and she gives him a smile he hasn’t seen before.
“It’s our son,” she says, and gestures at him to come see. Enji sits down on one side of the bed, careful not to take up too much space. From here, he gets a better look - the baby, a striking image of Rei, but with a hint of red fuzz atop his little head.
Enji’s heart grows a few sizes. He reaches out - carefully, tentatively. He hasn’t ever held a baby before, doesn’t know how to.
His finger slides in the space between all five of the baby’s and Touya grips tight, strong for a baby - stronger than Enji had known babies could be. Rei coos out something and Touya scrunches his little face, lets out a cry, opens his eyes.
Enji is met with his own piercing green.
Rei slides her hospital gown off one shoulder, bringing her breast closer and Touya latches, but never lets go of Enji’s hand. Enji cannot bring himself to take it away.
iv.
Life was boring in a hospital, but much worse when movement was limited to wheelchairs. Miraculously, Touya still had legs, though they weren’t worth much. He could stand with a lot of difficulty, and fall over if he tried taking a single step.
The few times he tried, he’d gone crashing to the floor, injuring himself in several places. Rei had cried over it, but Rei’s tears weren’t as exciting.
Shouto, being the only other one there, had hoisted him up with one arm and laid him back in his bed gently while Rei ran to get the doctors.
“I wanted to see if I’d crumble into ash if I fell really hard,” Touya told him. A lie, but a funny one, and one that made Shouto frown.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he replied. Then: “Yet.”
“Oh? So you think I could ?”
“Do you want to?”
Touya hummed. The pain was unbearable, he wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep but little brother had asked him a compelling question. “If I did, would you sprinkle my ashes over Dad’s natto every morning?”
Shouto gave him a blank stare in return. “No? That’s cannibalism. I think.”
“Boring,” Touya said. “Then no, I don’t want to.”
“Because it’s cannibalism?”
“Because you won’t do it.”
“Oh.”
The next day, he borrowed Enji’s age-old laptop to design an urn for himself on the basic in-built editing program. Eat Me! said the text, in bright blue, surrounded by what should have been flames but looked nothing like them.
He wondered what Enji would do if he were to burn himself alive again. Reduced to ash and bone, kept in a container. Would Enji find him a spot in a columbarium and visit him everyday? Would he keep him on his bedside? Sprinkle his ashes over Sekoto Peak?
Touya laughed at the screen. Then he clicked out of the software and casually tossed the computer against the wall. Enji did not ask questions, and Touya did not supply any answers.
The first time Rei snaps, Shouto is four years old. He remembers it clearly because he’d been counting down to the day Shouto got his quirk. He’d had hopes, but he’d done his best to suppress them so he won’t be disappointed yet again.
He’s not disappointed when Rei packs her bags and leaves for her mother’s house. It’s an inconvenience, but she’ll be back. He can’t bring himself to handle that right now.
The door slams behind her loudly, and Fuyumi, at ten, pushes Natsuo into the bedroom and starts clearing up the dinner table. Touya mutters something from his corner where he’s fiddling with a handheld video game.
Shouto has fallen asleep on the floor.
Enji looks between the kids, looks at the clock. He puts aside the documents he’s holding - today’s paperwork - and picks up his youngest son, painfully aware of his eldest watching. He has to put him to bed, it’s getting late. Rei isn’t around, after all. He’s the father, it’s his job.
He doesn’t know how Shouto likes to be tucked in, but he does his best, trying to remember what he’d done when Touya was the same age. They’re brothers, it shouldn’t be too different. Shouto is fast asleep, so it doesn’t matter either way.
When he steps out into the hallway, Touya is standing there, staring listlessly at the door.
“Touya,” Enji starts, but he doesn’t know what to follow up with. It doesn’t matter because Touya doesn’t give him the chance. He looks Enji straight in the eye, and walks off towards his own room.
Enji falters at the door, wondering if it’s okay for him to leave. Will Touya be back? Will Shouto be in danger? Should he sit in Shouto’s room and watch over him? Touya’s jealousy is a problem - one that will surely fix itself as he grows up and learns - but how far will he go for it, really?
He wouldn’t hurt his own brother, would he? Of course not. That’s not how Enji had raised him.
But he thinks of the burn marks on his own frail body, the scarring that makes him flinch when he showers, that he covers in burn pads he thinks nobody has noticed. Thinks of Shouto’s quirk - how reflexively he uses his ice when he gets hurt, even at four years old.
Enji pauses, looks at Shouto’s door then down the hall at Touya’s.
If he were to hurt someone - if he had to hurt someone - wouldn’t it be better if it was someone who could heal?
v.
Touya didn’t particularly enjoy talking about Sekoto Peak. Not with just anyone, anyway. Not with Rei, who never asked questions and only apologized. Not with Fuyumi, who grabbed his hands and told him she was happy he was still here.
Not with Natsuo, who did none of that, and just insulted Enji at every chance. Touya enjoyed that part, but not the way Natsuo’s guilt seeped through the words. They were too far gone for that.
Not with Shouto, even though Shouto asked all the right questions and said all the right things. Touya didn’t like a lot of things, but he didn’t hate a lot of things either. Somehow he hated this.
But he enjoyed it with Enji, who never brought up the subject if he could help it.
“Do you know how much it hurts to be burnt?” Touya asked one day. He was in his wheelchair, and Enji was getting ready to take him out into the gardens, fixing his brand new prosthetic arm to the stump. It was a very basic, rudimentary version and didn’t do very much yet, but was enough to grab things and support himself a little. Touya found it funny that his own two arms were intact, and still largely useless.
“Well, I guess you’d know, since you deal with burns too, but do you really know? I’d gotten burnt a lot when I was a kid, you know - you remember, don’t you? - but it hadn’t ever been that bad. Actually, I read somewhere that it only hurts at first because your nerves are still intact but maybe it’s because our quirks make our bodies capable of handling fire but I felt the pain the entire time I was burning. Did you know it smells? Flesh, I mean, when it’s burning, it smells like barbecue–”
A loud sob cut through the words, and Enji fell to his knees, the prosthetic lying on the floor. Enji’s tears wet the hospital gown.
“Oh?” Touya asked, the glee dripping off his voice. “Are you crying ?”
Enji responded with another sob, choking out something that sounded like an apology, but got muffled with his mouth pressed to Touya’s knees.
Touya ran his hands through Enji’s hair. He grabbed a fistful and pulled his head up, forcing Enji to look up at him. Those glorious, gorgeous tear-filled green eyes meeting his own.
“You’re crying?” he murmured, smiling brightly. “Good. Cry more. I can’t do it because I burnt away all my tear ducts, so you’ll have to do it for me.”
Enji took a deep breath and nodded. Touya let his head fall back in his lap, let his hand brush over his own arousal then settled for leaning back in his chair and letting Enji’s guilty cries satisfy him.
Enji isn’t a sentimental person. His married colleagues have scrapbooks of important dates in their relationships, take days off on their children’s birthdays, get flowers delivered to their partners on anniversaries.
Enji isn’t sentimental so he doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t remember as much as he just marks dates on calendars, hoping he’ll look at them on the right day.
It’s a sunny day in March when Touya first tells him he’s going to be a hero. Fuyumi is six, playing with her dolls in the backyard. Enji has just come home from the agency, and Touya had a lot to say about today’s news - Endeavor’s Effortless Win Against Villains.
It hadn’t been effortless, nor had it been a total win. There had been a lot of collateral damage, too many buildings fallen over, too many injured for him to feel any pride.
But Touya looks at him with awe and admiration, climbs into his lap and grabs his face with tiny hands, says the words: “I’m going to be an amazing hero too, just like you, Dad!”
Enji smiles, wraps his arms around his son and tells him he will. Of course he will. Todoroki Touya is meant for greatness.
Enji isn’t a sentimental person but he files the date away and can’t forget it if he tried.
vi.
Touya learned of his sentence almost a year after it was given to him. He’d still been knocked out for it and normally the courts would have waited until he regained consciousness to deliver it. Maybe being the son of the current number one had its benefits, even if he was a wanted criminal.
House arrest, quirk suppressants, and an ankle monitor for the rest of his life. He stared down at it now, sitting uncomfortably heavy on his leg. The house arrest was fine. The quirk suppressants were fine. If he tried using it now, he’d probably die. That was also fine.
But the ankle monitor pissed him off.
“Take this thing off me,” he told Enji, sitting on the sofa next to his wheelchair. “It’s not like I can even walk, what’s the point?”
“It’s what the court decided, Touya,” Enji chided. Softly, slowly, like talking to a child. Touya felt seven again. Seven, excited, exhilarated. “I can’t just take it off.”
“Sure, you can. What kind of father are you? Putting an ankle monitor on your own son after driving him into a corner with everything you did?”
Silence. A pause. Touya counted to three.
Enji sighed, and pushed himself off the sofa. Without his prosthetic leg - again, funnily enough, both of Touya’s were intact and still useless - it was a struggle, but he managed somehow. Touya watched him push himself into a seating position and reach out for his foot with his remaining hand.
“I would take it off if I could,” Enji said. “I’ll talk to the probation officer and ask him to–”
“You wear it.”
Enji looked up. Touya smiled, baring his teeth.
“I can’t get anywhere without you, can I? I’m stuck in this stupid chair with stupid useless legs. And we can’t go around breaking the law, that would be a terrible thing to do. So you wear it.”
Enji opened his mouth and closed it, but didn’t look away. Touya counted the seconds.
“Okay.” He watched his father bend over, place his forehead against Touya’s knee. The angle of his hand meant the ankle monitor dug into his skin, the weight of it sending a jolt of pain up his leg.
But that was okay.
Todoroki Touya could live with pain. But he could not live without Todoroki Enji.