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Chapter Text

“He tried to help me, and it resulted in his death,” Shoto says.

Izuku can’t talk, his throat clogged and his chest constricted. Despite his efforts to hide his reaction, he can tell Shoto notices, by the flicker behind Shoto's eyes.

"Sorry to lay all of that on you," Shoto says, stopping and putting his hands in his pockets. His bag is slung over his shoulder in front of the gates of the house Endeavor had built for his wife. “I shouldn’t get into my past. It’s not a fun conversation.”

"No, no. You can talk to me about anything," Izuku says, waving his hands in front of him and forcing an encouraging smile, even though he’s sick to his stomach and his movements are as jerky as a marionette’s. He knew that Shoto had a bad childhood, but listening to the details feels like having his guts rearranged. He has the urge to give Shoto everything he has of value, and devote his life to forcing the world to be soft and fair to him.

Unfortunately, deep down he knows that he could never scratch the surface of making up for the things that Shoto went through, or missed out on, or even fix the scars that still linger. Izuku can be his friend, and that’s all. It makes him feel small and useless.

"I’m always here for you. Anything you need, big or small,” Izuku says.

“You, too, Izuku. Thank you for walking with me," Shoto says.

“Have a nice visit with your mom.”

Izuku stands there and watches Shoto disappear into the front door.

*Eighteen Years Ago*

-- TOYA --

"Don't let Dad see your quirk.”

Shoto looks up at him, eyes round and startled. One is gray like their mom's, the other blue like their dad's. Shoto’s hand is small inside his, where Toya’s grasp is suffocating the flames that had flickered to life from his little brother's skin. He's so tiny and innocent; imagining Dad training him makes everything in Toya hurt, and he yearns to protect him.

"You're only three. You're not supposed to have your quirk yet."

Shoto's eyes dim, get uneasy, get sorry.

"It's not your fault, but Dad can't see it. Okay?"

Shoto nods.

He helps Shoto change into new clothes, and buries the burned ones in the bottom of the kitchen trash.

-- SHOTO --

Dad is huge and frowny, and whenever he comes around, Toya gets quiet and stiff. Shoto leans more into his mom's leg, hiding half of his face beside her hip, where her shirt hangs like a curtain.

The giant man called Dad crosses his arms and looks straight down at Shoto, eyes narrowed, making him feel cornered. "Still nothing?" Dad asks.

"It's not late, yet. It's only been a month since his birthday," Mom says, cupping the side of Shoto's head with her hand, keeping him next to her and hiding him further. "When it comes, it comes. What difference does a few weeks or months make?"

Dad grunts, but his scowl abates, turns more somber. "If he's another failure, there's no more chances this time. I'll have to make do with what we have."

Shoto can only see half of Toya's body past Dad, but it's enough to catch his brother’s flinch at Dad's words, and that makes Shoto's heart thud.

*

"What did Dad mean — that there's no more chances?" Shoto asks, in the courtyard.

"Mom can't have any more kids," Toya tells him, and passes him the soccer ball.

Images of faceless new brothers and sisters conjure in his head, and he thinks about the idea of being a big brother, and how apparently, this idea that he's never considered before is an impossibility even before he knew it had ever been possible. Mom could have kids before, but now she can't. Shoto doesn't know what to think of that, and Toya doesn't look like he wants to talk about it, so he just goes quiet and plays soccer.

-- TOYA --

"If he's another failure, there's no more chances this time. I'll have to make do with what we have."

It's a verbal slap in the face from his father. His father expects a great deal, and Toya has done everything he could to meet his requirements, even surpassed some of them through sheer stubbornness and physical ordeal. But the mix of his mother and father's quirks hadn't come out right in him, so he is a failure. There is nothing he can do to change that in his father's eyes. The fact that he can send out a blast of flame that can melt an iron door will never make up for not inheriting his mother's ice to be able to regulate his body temperature to use that fire at full power for longer than ten seconds at a time. He faints whenever he tries. Still, he knows he has a strong quirk, and that he can be a powerful hero with his flames.

But his father would only make do with him.

Toya puts away his brief sting of a reaction, burying it and moving on. He's used to his father's criticism. Endeavor’s training has made Toya on par with the pros in skill even at eleven years old, but it can be a harrowing experience and Toya often gets injured. His father has the sympathy level of a bird looking at a worm, and he's not kind in his assessments or his coaching.

Shoto's quirk may be the perfect mix that his father is looking for, but Shoto is fragile. He couldn't handle their father's expectations or the physical and emotional pain that came with training with Endeavor. Shoto cried if someone stepped on a bug in front of him, and he couldn't even carry his own bucket of sand in the sand box. Toya has become accustomed, along with Mom and Fuyumi, to doing things for Shoto and making sure everyone is calm and kind around him, and that no one says anything critical of him, so he won’t cry. Shoto wants to be good and be liked by everyone, and is so sensitive. Being a disappointment to anyone in the family is like the end of the world. If he went into hero training with Endeavor, their father would break him.

Maybe his emotional fragility will make it easier for Dad to let go of the idea of Shoto being hero material.

-- SHOTO --

Dad is only home in the evenings, and Shoto doesn't see him for most of that time, except at dinner. Dinner times are silent, because, 'Dad deals with a lot of noise at work, he wants quiet at home,' his mom says. The rule of silence only applies to kids, though, not adults. Sometimes Mom asks a quiet question or makes a comment and Dad answers gruffly, but most of the time the only sound is chewing and the light scrape of chopsticks on bowls. Shoto's knees are uncomfortable under him, but when he shifts, his dad's eyes slide his way, so he tries to stay still and keeps close to his mom. She's the only one that makes him feel safe, the only one allowed to talk freely to Dad and make suggestions or ask questions, and she lets him hide behind her.

Toya would let Shoto hide behind him, but Toya is too small and authority-less to make Shoto feel safe. His big brother should hide behind Mom, too, sometimes, but Toya never does. Shoto asked Toya why he wouldn't, once, and he said it was because he was a 'big boy’ and couldn’t cause trouble for Mom. Shoto thought he wanted to be a big boy until that moment. Now, he wants to stay little, and shuns any comments on him getting bigger and whoever makes those comments.

Shoto leans his cheek on his mom's arm, eating slowly so he doesn't spill any on her, lest he be forced away. He doesn't care if he gets to finish. As soon as everyone else is done, he puts his chopsticks down and whispers into her shoulder that he's full.

Dinner is the most stressful part of the day.

*

"Your children are so well behaved!" the woman with the long black hair says. She's kneeling at the table with Mom, having tea. Shoto follows her gaze to his siblings to see what she’s talking about, but they're not doing anything special that he can tell. Fuyumi is doing homework and Toya is helping Natsuo color a picture. He wonders what makes them better behaved than others. He doesn't know any other children except his siblings. His older brothers and sister go to school during the daytime, and they tell him that there are lots of children there, but Shoto gets to stay home with Mom. When he's five he'll have to go on the bus, too, but Mom says that's a long time away, and that if he really doesn't want to go, they'll get him a teacher at home, and that made him stop crying. He doesn't want to leave his mom. He doesn’t want to go anywhere that she doesn’t go.

*

He's five today. Mom makes him a cake and Toya lights his candles with flames from his hand. When he goes to blow them out, Fuyumi claps his cheeks and makes him spit all over the cake, and Natsuo giggles. His dad stands at the side, in the kitchen archway, with his arms crossed, but Mom says they're allowed to talk and play at birthdays, even though Shoto still doesn't like to talk with Dad there. Dad hands Shoto a gift, silently, and refuses to have any cake.

*

"I can't tell you why he's not manifesting yet. He could be quirkless. These things are rare, but they happen," the doctor in the long white coat says.

"Quirkless," Dad repeats, and then is silent and fuming.

Shoto ducks his head, afraid his dad will see right through him to the fire and ice inside him. His body is getting hot and tingly and he's scared that it will start escaping out of his skin, terrified that Dad will see that he's been hiding it all of this time.

Dad finally turns away and brings him back to the car, and his quirk stays hidden inside him.

*

When they get home, Dad's attention goes to Toya. He doesn't say anything to him, but Toya tilts his head down more than usual under the gaze and his shoulders are stiff as he eats dinner.

"What did the doctor say?" Mom asks.

"Quirkless," Dad says, the one-word answer dour.

Toya glances up quickly, then drops his gaze and goes back to eating with even more concentration.

When Toya's bowl is empty, Dad stands. "Come, Toya. We have work to do."

*

After his bath, Shoto leaves his mom and goes outside to meet his siblings.

“Where’s Toya?” Shoto asks, twisting to scan around the courtyard, but doesn’t find any sign of the bigger, red-haired boy.

Fuyumi sits on the edge of one of the raised flower beds with her hands in her lap, rolling a soccer ball forward and backward with her foot, spacing out and sad. Natsuo makes a pile of dirt and arranges sticks in it.

“He’s training. He’ll be back later,” Fuyumi says, monotone.

“Training?”

“It’s how you get stronger and become a hero.”

Shoto perks up. "Cool!”

Toya would be an awesome hero!

Fuyumi looks at him more scowly and annoyed than Shoto expected, then looks away. She’s probably sad that she didn’t get to train, too. She’s Toya’s twin, and sometimes she gets moody about being left out of things that involve her brother.

“Wanna play school?” he offers, trying to cheer her up with her favorite game, even if it's really just work for him, while she plays teacher and makes him do stuff.

*

“Is Toya still training?” Shoto asks. It's almost bedtime, and he was hoping Toya would show up before then. He hasn’t seen his brother except at meals for three days now. Toya always looks tired, but he promised Shoto at breakfast that he'd come play again as soon as he could, only Toya didn't know when that would be.

"Go brush your teeth. You'll see him at breakfast," Mom says, pushing him along.

Shoto obeys, but once he's in bed and the lights are off, he can't sleep. He knows where Toya is at night — it's really the only time he knows where Toya is without his dad being there, too, and that Shoto can get there by himself. This is his chance.

He sneaks out of his room and down the dark hall. He carefully opens his brother's door, stepping in and closing it behind him with a click that sounds loud in the silence.

"Shoto?"

Shoto is glad to hear Toya's voice. He finds his way by moonlight to his brother's bed, climbing up where Toya is raising the blanket to let him inside. He crawls into the cave created and Toya wraps it around him, tugging his pillow a little out from under his head so that Shoto can have half. Shoto adjusts himself to lay down, bumping Toya with a knee. Toya emits a grunt, then breathes funny, fast and pained.

"Sorry!" Shoto says, going stock still, worrying at the way Toya sounds.

"It's okay. Just be careful. Lay down."

Shoto moves slowly, focusing on where his limbs are going, careful not to bump Toya this time, curling on his side facing his brother. Toya's breath evens out and blows Shoto's chin and his body heat warms Shoto. Toya has always been warmer than the rest of their family, who mostly have ice quirks. Toya's heat bothers Natsuo and Mom, if he leans against them or hugs them too long. Fuyumi doesn't say anything when Toya crowds her, won't push her twin away even if Shoto sees her sweating, but Shoto is the only one that thinks Toya’s warmth is nice.

"Go to sleep," Toya says, and he sounds exhausted, so Shoto curls his fingers around Toya's wrist in the dark and closes his eyes, staying still so he doesn't bother him.

After not too long, he falls asleep.

*

He wakes up to noises outside the door. It takes a second to recognize his parents' voices; he's never heard them speak in those tones before, Dad's voice a clipped growl and Mom's voice pleading like that.

Toya tenses beside him, then looks at Shoto. "It's alright. They'll stop soon."

Toya sits up, the blanket falling to his waist, and Shoto's eyes widen at the long straight bruise on his torso, like a horizontal purple bar across his ribs.

"It's alright. I'm fine." Toya climbs off the bed and goes to the dresser, slipping into a white tank top and wincing as he pulls it down his chest.

His parents get close enough for their words to be heard, and Shoto looks at the door.

"He needs a rest," Mom says, strained and begging.

"Do you think I'm incompetent? I tailor the training to be consecutive. Get out of my way, Rei, or I'll move you."

"It's Saturday," she says. "The kids miss him. Let him play with them today."

"He'll have plenty of time for that in the afternoon. His morning is for training."

"He'll be too exhausted to play. Enji—"

Dad cuts her off with a snap of his voice. "His entrance exam to UA is in less than fourteen months. Get out of the way."

Mom lets out a little cry and there's a swish-thump and then heavy footsteps take the last few to the door and there's a powerful knock that rattles it.

Shoto jolts and yanks the blanket up to his nose.

"Coming!" Toya says.

Toya pulls on sweatpants and ties the drawstring. He glances at Shoto with an anxious expression, like he wants Shoto to do something, but Shoto doesn't know what he wants from him, so he just stays there frozen.

The door opens, Dad filling the entrance with his huge body. Shoto's eyes slide past him into the crack beside him and land on his mother. She's hunching, her face in her hands, and when she makes a sob noise, it's like a call that echoes through Shoto's chest and vibrates through the cavity, and the dam in Shoto breaks. He bursts into tears.

His eyes are scrunched and blurry as he cries, wailing. It takes a wipe across his eyes with his arm for him to see Toya and Dad staring at him, Toya pale and scared and Dad smiling so wide that he shows teeth. Shoto has never seen Dad happy before, and it stills him for a moment. Then Shoto sees the licks of flame at the edge of his vision. He turns his head, but the flames move. They're coming from his cheek.

His eyes dart to Toya with guilt and fear, meeting Toya's pained gray ones, and he scrunches his face, concentrating on making the flames disappear.

He puts both hands to his face to check his cheeks, and his right hand is ice cold. He looks at it and there's white mist surrounding it, like a breath in winter.

Mom pushes under Dad's arm to get into the room and runs straight to Shoto, scooping him up and hugging him close. She turns to the door and approaches it, glaring at Dad with her red rimmed eyes. Shoto clings to her neck, twisting his fingers in the back of her shirt.

Dad steps back and gestures her by, and something inside of Shoto releases. Mom walks through, Dad's head turning to watch Shoto all the way past and down the hall.

Shoto stares back at him through his tears, his chin on Mom's shoulder, clutching her neck, until they turn the corner and go out of sight.

Chapter Text

-- ENJI --

Shoto is hiding in his mother's side. Enji has rarely seen him elsewhere.

"Come, Shoto," Enji says, controlling his voice.

Shoto stiffens and stares up, too scared to come out, even when Enji is being patient.

Enji dams up a sigh and crouches on his heels so he's closer to his youngest son's level. He gestures for Shoto with a wave of his hand. "Come."

"He's not ready," Rei says, fretting. "Enji, don't."

Enji's chest tightens with irritation at the constant nagging, like he's doing something insidious by preparing his children to be heroes. "If it were up to you, all four of them would be wilting flowers with no concept of how to survive, let alone be useful members to society," he snaps.

Shoto's lip wobbles and his eyes swim.

Enji's tired of emotional nonsense from his wife and dislikes to see it mirrored in his son.

"I'll come back for him in half an hour," he says, scowling and rising to his feet. "And this time, he's coming, so prepare him."

*

He doesn't know whether Rei tried to prepare Shoto or not, but with the state of the child at this point after so much babying, there probably wasn't anything anyone could say to convince him to leave his mother peacefully. Enji ends up having to take him by force, and it's a whole thing. The two of them are a feedback loop, emotions escalating as they respond to each other. Shoto's fingers gripping the fabric of his mother's shirt as Enji pulls him away makes Rei follow after him and beg, and her begging makes Shoto cry, and Shoto crying makes Rei grab onto Enji to try to stop him, and he has to push her off of his arm to get her to let go. She keens and lets herself fall to the floor in a hysterical mess, which upsets Shoto to the brink of hysteria along with her, and the other three children are coming out of the woodwork to stare now.

He finally gets to the training room with his son and closes the door on the ridiculous sounds that Rei is making, and sets Shoto on his feet in the middle of the training room.

Shoto keeps crying.

He stands over Shoto with his arms crossed and waits, getting steadily more disgusted with the behaviour until Shoto crescendos by working himself up so much that he gags, and heaves, then falls down on all fours and pukes.

"You're not getting out of this by crying. I won't change to your whims like your mother does."

Rei pushes into the training room, then, dropping on her knees next to Shoto. "He's only five!" she says, like it's acceptable for a five year old to act this way.

Enji furrows his brow at the nonsense. "He's already five," he says. Shoto is a year behind for starting his training. The sooner he starts to use his quirk, the further he'll be able to go with it.

She ignores him, stroking Shoto and hugging him like the worst thing just happened to him, and Shoto is clinging and sobbing.

Enji grabs her by the elbow, separating her from Shoto, and ejects her from his training room. "Stay out," he tells her, and shuts the door.

He has Shoto clean up his mess as his first lesson.

-- SHOTO --

Shoto clutches his mom’s arm at the dinner table, cheek pressed against it. He hiccups and occasionally his lungs shudder, the after effects from crying. Dad said they were taking a break for dinner and then going back to the training room. Dad's gaze on him feels like a physical weight pressing him down.

Toya shifts closer to him, crowding in and helping to hide most of him, and Shoto gets some comfort from it. Toya picks up Shoto's chopsticks and holds his food to him. His stomach is in a knot and he's not hungry, but he opens his mouth for Toya. Then Toya rubs his back, but for some reason that makes Shoto want to cry more. It’s hard to keep it in, but Dad’s gaze is a strong motivator.

"You're the child I spent all these years creating. I gave you the perfect quirk, and you're not going to disappoint me," Dad says, his tone turning darker at the last. "You're going to surpass All Might. Now, activate your fire, and don't stop, not until I tell you."

Dad's mind is hard to understand, his words contradicting, and his actions the opposite of what seems right. He calls Shoto his masterpiece, then calls him a disgrace. He says he has a strong quirk, then complains that he's weak. Shoto cries when it hurts, and instead of giving him a break, he pushes him harder.

Shoto will never fit right, and he doesn't want to be a part of Dad's confusing and terrifying world.

-- ENJI --

Toya is upset with him. Enji tolerates it.

Shoto is squished between Rei and Toya at the dinner table, barely room for the child to breathe, peeking out like a mouse in a crevice, eyes still red-rimmed from crying. He refuses to let go of Rei's arm to pick up his chopsticks to eat, so Toya is feeding him, alternating between taking his own bites and poking food into his brother's mouth, his expression switching between hateful when turned toward the table and Enji, and then mild and comforting when turned toward the shattered five year old.

Enji honestly can't tell if it's because Shoto is fragile, or if their overprotectiveness and enabling has trained Shoto to be helpless.

Training Shoto is more like his experience with his wife, than like his experience with his first son. Toya is stubborn and independent, determined to prove himself. Shoto disintegrates like a pile of leaves in the wind at the slightest pressure, and has no desire to be strong, preferring to clutch to others for protection. And physically, the two boys couldn’t be more different. Toya is naturally solid and carries more muscle mass than the average boy his age, the same as Enji. Shoto is still young but Enji can already tell it will be a struggle for him to gain weight.

On the other hand, whereas Toya can't handle his own flames at full power for long, Shoto has the ability to regulate his body temperature both hot and cold, so there's no limit to how far he can train his quirk.

No physical limit, that is. Shoto still hides behind his mother, and cries when Enji takes him away from her to go to the training room after dinner. He feels the heat of Toya's glare on the back of his neck, and mentally prepares himself for an attack one day. He's sure it'll come. Toya takes after him, after all.

*

Two days later, Rei has fallen apart completely at not getting her way with keeping Shoto out of the training room and has decided to cry on the couch rather than come to the dinner table. Little Fuyumi has cooked and set the table in an attempt to help smooth things and keep the peace.

"Pathetic," he tells Rei, as he passes her in the living room and picks Shoto up off of her by the armpits, the boy hanging as limp as a kitten taken by the scruff, instantly crying at Enji's contact. He enters the dining room to join the table, plopping the upset boy next to Toya, and Shoto clings there instead.

Enji's presence has never been a comfort to his children. That isn't his role in their lives.

But now, their mother is out of commission, none of them are eating, Shoto is not stopping crying, and Toya is glaring at his bowl, looking out from under his bangs often enough that Enji knows the glare is actually directed at him. Fuyumi is huddled and poking at her food, near tears, and even Natsuo, who is usually the most emotionally stable and oblivious of all of them, looks distressed.

Enji's not the person to call when it comes to dealing with emotional upheaval.

Someone has to take care of them and comfort them, though it's clearly not going to be him or Rei. Enji is neither emotionally nor physically right for the job, and if he were to try, he would only scare them and make everyone involved uncomfortable.

Besides, he has hero work to do. He can’t stay home.

He hears a bedroom door close; Rei has left and completely closed herself off, and the children visibly crumble at the sound.

Enji sighs through his nose and drops his chopsticks into his food. He stands from the table and takes out his cell phone, turning his back to the children and walking to the counter, setting a hand on the sink. He does a search online, and calls a caregiver referral company.

"I need children's services," he's saying, "my wife can no longer look after them," and then white hot flame washes over him with a malevolent, crackling whoosh. It's much hotter than his own, so he breaks out in a sweat and his back feels dry and singed. His shirt is gone, burned to smoke and a few charred flakes, and his cell phone is deformed and dead in his hand.

He turns his head, leveling Toya with a look.

Toya stands with his hand still out, breathing hard and brows furrowed, cheeks red, eyes locked on Enji — but that attack was only a show of emotion. He could have injured Enji, but didn't, and Enji recognizes, looking at the apprehension under the anger in his eyes, that his son is aware that he’s not good enough yet to take on his father, but his emotions are also too high for him to just stand by.

Shoto's crying is escalating, now on the verge of reaching vomit proportions, choking on his own tears. Fuyumi and Natsuo have frozen in terror, expecting a backlash from Enji to be unleashed on Toya.

Enji does the only thing that he can do that always seems to calm his children down. He turns and leaves.

*

He resumes the call on the landline in his office and hires the live-in nanny that the consultant recommends. Then he washes off the black marks on his skin and puts on a new shirt.

When he goes back out, dinner is abandoned. The children are clinging to Toya on the couch in the living room, having meltdowns.

He scowls at the dramatics. “Stop this nonsense and go eat your food.”

Fuyumi and Natsuo cower back into the couch and wipe their tears. Toya gives him a glare that could freeze hell. Shoto is clinging to Toya with his face too far into his brother's neck to be seen, but Enji can hear him whimpering and gasping, and see his ribs shuddering in a rhythm.

“Is someone coming to get us?” Natsuo asks, voice watery and breaking. "I don't want to go."

It clicks why his children are going off the deep end, and he frowns.

“Of course not. Regardless of the state of your mother, you're still my children, you belong to me, and that means you stay here. I've hired a woman named Ichi to look after you. She'll be here tomorrow morning."

Most parents would give a speech about good behaviour for the new caregiver, but Enji's children are a far cry from most children. They’re overly sensitive, responsible, goody-two-shoes, all of them. If they didn't do most of Ichi’s work for her tomorrow, then he could be sure the woman was truly heinous.

"Grandpa and Grandma Yamaguchi don't live far...Maybe they could come help take care of us and Mom…?" Fuyumi says.

Enji side-glances at the computer, and confirms it's on, despite the screen being off; she's done some research while he was out of the room.

She's the last one that would enjoy a visit with Rei’s chauvinistic father, and her grandmother Yamaguchi would only teach her how to be subservient and develop an inferiority complex. "They're not suitable caregivers for you. If your mother wants to go stay with them, she's welcome, but you all are staying here."

Toya grits his teeth. "Mom can take us to see them if she wants! She has just as much right as you!"

The words trigger a burst of fire from Enji's skin and he snarls. "You won’t go anywhere with your mother."

Fuyumi and Natsuo recoil, and Shoto's body seizes up, his arms tightening on Toya's neck. Surprise flickers on Toya's face, but it turns back into a scowl.

“You will all eat your dinner and then pack up your bedding and take it to the west wing. You'll stay there until your mother recovers from her hysterical fit, and if you ever go anywhere with her without my permission, I'll make her sorry, I promise you." Enji indicates the dinner table with a jerk of his head, and Fuyumi slips from the couch and shuffles off to obey, hands trembling together in front of her. Natsuo follows her, glancing over his shoulder.

Toya is still clenching his fists that are around Shoto and pulsing the muscle in his jaw; it's wearying, but at least one of his children is in no danger of inheriting Rei's submissive temperament. Shoto has pulled his mother's couch-blanket up over his head, only a small patch of his red and white hair showing at the edge of the cover.

Enji forces himself to calm down, letting his flames go out. "Considering the misunderstanding, I won't hold you accountable for your actions tonight. But don't attack me again, Toya."

Toya looks down, and his fists clench tighter.

It's a problem, but hopefully one for another day. Enji doesn't want to deal with anything more tonight.

*

Fuyumi leads the way, her pillow on her shoulder and both her and Natsuo's blankets in her arm, the ends of them dragging on the floor as the children make a sad procession down the hall to the door to the unused west wing apartment. It had been marketed by the realtor as an in-law suite, but Endeavor would become All Might's sidekick before he would let either his or Rei's parents move in.

Natsuo follows her, hugging his pillow in his arms. Toya brings up the rear, a blanket and pillow rolled under one arm, and the other holding Shoto's hand. Shoto’s not likely to stop clinging to his brother for the foreseeable future, so it's not hard to deduce that they'll be sharing the bedding.

Enji’s mind wanders to the prediction of a blanket fort soon being constructed in the apartment living room, but then Toya looks back at him.

Enji has come face to face with enough cornered villains with that look to recognize the dark resolve in Toya's eyes. His eyes dart down to where Toya holds Shoto's hand, leading him away from Enji, and a tingle of warning goes down Enji's spine, a premonition prodding at the back of his mind. He knows how much Toya is capable of, and what motivates him, and the conclusion is worrying.

"Wait," Enji says, and the children freeze and look back, Enji striding the few steps between them and scooping Shoto up, which sets the boy to crying at being in his father's arms and taken away from Toya. "Shoto will stay here."

Toya's shoulders bunch up, every line of his body going tense. "If he's staying, we're all staying."

That's what Enji is banking on. Toya won't leave without Shoto, would never abandon the baby brother that he dotes on so much. Enji's not going to allow them to be four little runaways and he doesn't want to have to fight Toya in the street to capture him and bring him home. His children aren't average. They're too clever, and their quirks are too good; he doesn't put it past them to get off the estate and disappear, giving the police a run for their money in trying to bring them back, possibly seriously injuring someone, if they try to get between Toya and any of his siblings.

"He's getting a tutor that will watch him while you're at school, and in the evenings he'll be with me and your mother. You three will go and stay with Ichi until your mother gets better," he says. He looks at Toya and adds, "Defy me, and you'll go to boarding school, Toya."

There's no privilege he could take away or injury he could inflict that would overcome Toya's determination once he gets an idea in his head, but Toya won't risk being sent away from his siblings; he recedes and his mouth presses shut.

Holding Shoto in one arm, Enji watches them go into the apartment. Shoto's face is wet with tears and his breath is stuttering with his sobs as he watches his siblings leave him behind. The tension in Toya’s neck and shoulders winds up from the sound, the blame for every whimper Shoto emits like an elastic stretching, and all the recoil building up is going to be aimed at Enji.

"Stop crying," he says, under his breath. "You're always crying."

Shoto flinches, but his crying continues on, simply huddling in on himself more.

He takes Shoto to the bathroom and wipes his face with a wet cloth to get the snot and grossness, then puts him to bed. He's still crying, but there doesn't seem to be anything Enji can do about that. Shoto will have to cry himself to sleep.

It feels off to lock the door to the apartment with his children on the other side, but he can't allow himself to sleep until both it and Shoto's doors are locked with the master key, and the inside mechanisms disabled.

Chapter Text

-- TOYA --

Natsuo is clinging to Fuyumi in his sleep. Toya lays a foot away on the living room floor, keeping his body heat away from them, so he doesn't make them uncomfortable. He doesn't know what time it is. There's no clock here. There had been futons in the closet, and a table and a couch, but it's otherwise barren, unused. It's fully dark and the moon is out, and it seems like it's been a long time, but he's just been lying here in misery, so time has probably been going more slowly than it feels. Shoto’s terrified face plagues his mind. His baby brother doesn't do well with cold and impersonal people like his father. If his mother was with him now, it'd be different, but she'd been unreliable lately. He can't leave Shoto in the house alone to his father's idea of care for however long it takes his mother to 'get better,' whatever that means. She’s always been this way, and she’s deteriorating, not getting better.

His father is probably asleep by now. He gets up before five am every morning, and he never stays up late.

Toya rolls up to his feet and sneaks past his sleeping siblings to go to the door that leads to the main part of the house. He grips the knob and turns, and it moves a millimeter and stops with a click.

It’s locked.

For a moment, he’s still, in shock, and then his insides turn to static and his breathing accelerates. He can’t believe the bastard locked them out of the house.

*

Ichi arrives early with a key to the front door of the apartment. She’s an old lady with a bun on top of her head. She wears a kimono and has a kind, wrinkly smile, and her eyes never seem to open. She’s not their mother, but she speaks with mild mannered authority and ushers them all to get dressed from a few hangers covered in plastic that contain their school uniforms, and she tells them their things will be delivered to their rooms today while they’re at school.

Instead of getting to go home to eat, she makes them breakfast in the apartment.

The door to the main house is still locked, and he has to go to school without so much as a glimpse of Shoto or Mom.

-- SHOTO --

Shoto kneels at the table, his eyes drifting to the empty expanse where his siblings used to sit. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve and sits quietly waiting for his breakfast.

Mom sets his bowl in front of him then sits next to him, and he reaches across himself to clutch her shirt with his left hand, so he can use his right for his chopsticks.

Dad leaves for work before Shoto’s done eating.

*

“Um…” Shoto squirms, lowering his head under Mr. Yorik’s stare. “I don’t remember that one.”

“Put out your hands.”

A sting cuts across his knuckles. Shoto doesn’t acknowledge it; the underside of his hands are blistered and sore from training, so the new sting hardly even registers.

Mr. Yorik doesn’t move away or continue, making Shoto look up at him. The teacher narrows his eyes at him, and looks unsatisfied.

Shoto’s stomach flips and he realizes that not reacting was a mistake.

The switch comes down again, much harder, and Shoto cries out.

The teacher nods and turns to continue with his lecture.

Shoto clutches his hands to his chest, eyes stinging and watering.

*

His tutor leaves at three o'clock. Until Dad gets home from work, it's just him and Mom, while she makes dinner. He feels raw from six hours of the demanding attention of Mr. Yorik and the hundreds of characters and information the man forced him to memorize or be punished. He burrows his head into her side and clutches her leg and she puts a hand on his head while she stirs a pot at the stove.

“Careful,” she says, tilting herself away from the stove so that he’s further from it. “Why don’t you go watch TV until it’s ready?”

“Can I have some peanut butter?” He feels empty, faint. He needs something.

“Sure. Can you get it?”

He nods against her, then lets go and climbs on a stool and opens the cupboard. He gets the jar and tries to grip it, but his hands hurt. He grips it anyway, and twists, but it’s stuck. He’s tired and frustrated and normally Shoto just gets sad and cries when things don’t go his way, but this time his temper flares, and so does his fire, flames leaping up from him.

-- TOYA --

Gym class is so pathetic and full of wimps that it’s always been useless.

“Do as many push ups as you can in sixty seconds,” the gym teacher says, to the class standing next to their blue mats laid out on the floor.

Some of them move down into a plank position with a straight back, and some of them already have fear and struggle written on their faces as they get down on their knees, so Toya knows their spindly arms won’t be able to take it. None of these kids have accomplished anything significant in their physical training.

Toya would normally go through the exercises mindlessly and put no effort, but there’s anger burning inside of his chest, wrapped in a constricting sense of need, of urgency. He needs to figure out a way to get back inside of the house to Shoto. He needs to get stronger, because he feels helpless.

He rolls hands first onto the mat and kicks his feet up, crossing his ankles in the air and doing handstand pushups. With his father training Shoto instead, now, he doesn’t have to conserve energy for the evenings after school — he wants to use all the time that he has available, and keep as much of his time at home free for his siblings and his mom.

The kid on the mat next to him is laying on his side, staring at Toya open-mouthed. Toya ignores him.

*

Toya stands by the door. It's almost silent, but sometimes he hears his mom or his father's voice, unintelligible through the wood.

Shoto's crying accompanies their voices every time. Toya needs to do something, but he doesn't know what he can do.

*

“Hey, Toya!” Yuri says. She waves with that big smile she always has for him. Toya turns his back to her, his eyes hooding and his mouth turning down. “Can I hang out with you?”

“If you can keep up,” he says, and starts his first lap around the track at a sprint.

She can’t.

-- ENJI --

Enji stops by the archway to the kitchen, seeing his youngest son screw up his little face in a snarl and burst into flames. A grin of amusement stretches Enji’s lips, recognizing himself in Shoto, but then his eyes flick to Rei’s reaction, and his smile fades. She’s pale, staring and gripping her wooden spoon like she’s seen a ghost.

“Come here, Shoto,” he says.

Shoto’s head whips around and his flames drop away like they never existed. He puts down the jar and turns and jumps. The boy who a few months ago would have sat and delicately gotten down like he was breakable now leaps down and bends his knees. He trembles and looks a bit pale as he comes over — his eyes staying on Enji and off of his mother, as Enji intended— but he’s made some progress since starting his training.

-- TOYA --

His head is down, one hand in his pocket as he sucks down his drink box of yogurt, brooding as he walks along the outer edge of the school. The straw slurps and he closes his fist, crumpling it with a crunching sound, and tosses it in a garbage can at the corner. The sound of a cry hits his ears, and he stops, turning his head. His eyes fall on two figures, a boy crying while a bigger one stands over him, and his eyes unfocus as his mind conjures similar scenes in his memory, because it’s too much like his dad and brother.

The bully looks up to glance at who arrived, a smirk on his face, but it falls as he sees Toya.

Toya can feel what the boy is seeing, the expression that he’s wearing. He knows that his mouth is straight, that his eyes are flat, that they’re focused too intensely, and he can see that the boy regrets drawing his attention and is getting nervous.

“See you later, dork,” the bully says, trying to maintain face, and turns and heads away with his nose up.

Toya lets out a burst of flames that rockets him up. He turns in the air and lands in front of the bully, bending his knees to absorb the impact, and facing him with no change in his expression. “You think you can just walk away?” he says.

The boy pales and shakes as he retreats a few steps.

Toya follows, closing the distance between them and moving in.

-- ENJI --

Toya has always done what Enji told him, and his stubborn streak has never brought about anything negative, and only affected his training for the better, until this week. Ever since Enji started training Shoto, Toya has been erratic, and now, he's getting into physical altercations at school. He’s getting out of control.

"Put your hand on the tub and heat the water," Enji says, at the large drum in the training room. There's a thermometer to measure Shoto's output, and a timer to keep track of progress.

Shoto shakes his head, appearing pale and scared to talk, but still putting his metaphorical foot down.

Enji stares down at him for a moment, caught between juxtaposing desires of wanting to encourage this uncharacteristic show of backbone and needing to maintain discipline.

"And why not?"

"I wanna see Toya." Shoto's body trembles and his eyes water, but at least he voiced his demand.

"Toya is grounded. You can see him when he stops misbehaving."

"Let me see him, and I'll tell him to be good, and he will!"

Enji would be surprised if that didn't work.

"He's not supposed to listen to you; he's supposed to listen to me."

The tears are starting to drip down Shoto's cheeks now. He probably knows as well as Enji does that Toya won't stop hating his father anytime soon.

"I'll tell him whatever you want!" Shoto says.

Enji nips that habit in the bud. “Don’t make open-ended promises. You should know exactly what you’ll be giving when you make a deal with someone.”

Enji nods toward the tub and makes an offer. “If you beat your last test result by twenty degrees, then you can say goodnight to Toya.”

*

Letting Shoto see Toya was supposed to be a compromise, a step toward peace, but it's only gasoline on the fire. Shoto bursts into tears as soon as he sees Toya, which infuriates Toya when he sees the emotional state of Shoto. Shoto's hands are red, and when Toya turns them over and sees blisters, he gets tense.

Toya has had plenty of training injuries, and never made a big deal of them, but he doesn't dismiss Shoto's discomforts the way he does his own. He doesn't say anything, but Enji can see him keeping the words inside. Enji doesn't need to hear them. He can read them clearly in Toya's face and the lines of his shoulders.

"Once he learns to use his quirk properly, he won't burn himself," Enji says, but it doesn't make Toya lose any of his tension or lessen the anger in his eyes.

Toya pulls Shoto into his body and wraps around him, Shoto’s head pushed into his neck. Enji thinks he's doing it just as much to hide his expression from Shoto as to comfort his little brother. His face is barely contained violence.

"Himself?" he hears Toya hiss, but it's low enough that Enji can choose to pretend not to hear it. Toya blames him, and there's no point in arguing. He made Shoto heat the drum, and he knew what would happen when Shoto set his hand directly on it without controlling his temperature or directing the heat away from himself. He could have babied Shoto like Toya and his mother did, and wrapped him in cotton batting, but then Shoto would stay naive and weak. He needed to learn what happens when he uses his quirk wrong, and how to fix it, and better to learn it in Enji's training room.

*

"If you didn't cry so much, Toya wouldn't be upset, and he wouldn't get himself into trouble."

Shoto’s face falls into devastation at the words for a moment, his face frozen in the expression, and then he cries even more. Enji sighs.

"Just heat the water. You know the deal."

Shoto wrangles his tears enough to see and puts his hand flat on the tub, brow furrowed with renewed purpose. He appears even more set on seeing Toya now, as if to right his wrongs. Maybe this breakdown won’t be the usual unnecessary fare.

Shoto's hand reddens and then the water explodes with bubbles. It jolts Enji, the leap in Shoto's power level so sudden.

He grins. This test has become obsolete. They'll be going to the next level of tests to record his progress.

"Very good," Enji says, a rare show of praise. He's not often pleasantly surprised enough to grin.

"Can I see Toya now?"

Enji looks down at Shoto's burned hand from pressing against the steel he was heating, the boy clutching it to himself and shaking, but not complaining. He's already getting better at bearing pain. He's impervious to fire, but not other hot objects, yet. He'll be able to protect himself with his quirk, eventually, once he learns better control of his body temperature. "You should let that heal, first. Toya doesn't like seeing you wounded. You need to learn how to heat it without burning yourself."

Shoto looks down at his hands, upset at the obstacle.

"We'll add up all of your missed time for one long visit so you don't lose any," Enji says, and the despair on Shoto's face abates as he looks up at Enji.

"Can we have a whole day, if I don’t burn myself?"

He’s glad to see that Shoto is on his way to becoming a better negotiator.

-- TOYA --

Toya sees red and white hair bouncing in the distance from the corner of his eye, and his heart kicks up into overdrive, his head whipping around to stare at Shoto running toward him across the courtyard on a Saturday morning. He hasn’t seen Shoto in two weeks. The sudden lift on the ban raises his heart almost out of his body, but he can feel the potential energy pulling on it, waiting for the fall.

"I get to stay outside with you guys for the whole day!"

Toya's body and mind both halt at that, and he looks at Shoto to make sure he heard right. "Dad gave you a day off?"

"We made a deal. I heated the water without burning myself, and he let me see you for a whole day." Shoto grins, bright and proud and excited.

Toya's heart sinks and his gut goes cold. If he’s the incentive for Shoto to train, then Endeavor will keep them separate to make Shoto work harder.

He clears his face, not wanting Shoto to know that. It will only make things harder on him, and he should enjoy his day off, when he gets so little time outside of tutoring and training. "I'm glad you're not burning yourself anymore," he says, pushing out a smile though he feels heavy inside and there’s a sharp pain in his heart. He rubs Shoto's hair, then pulls him in for a hug.

"So, what do you want to play?" he asks.

Whatever games or activities Shoto imagines up, Toya will make them happen.

Chapter Text

-- REI --

It had been hard, so hard, to watch Toya go through training, but Toya had been a strong kid. He didn’t cry very often when Enji trained him. He always tried his best, and he always kept his own personality when he left the training room. And there had been something she could do to help, a bargain she could strike with Enji, because he didn’t have his perfect child, yet. But Enji wasn’t twenty-five anymore. Time was running along and Shoto was the ideal mix of their quirks. Even if Rei could get pregnant again, a gamble on another pregnancy had a negligible chance of being an improvement, when Shoto was so close to perfect. And Shoto cried, and tried to cling to her, and he bruised and broke so easily. Then he started acting like Enji. He used his flames to express himself, and would glare when he was in a bad mood and look just like his father. She couldn’t handle it.

She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stand being in the house, but there was nowhere else to go. The constant anxiety and helplessness was driving her crazy.

*

It takes her a while to get up the nerve and energy to go visit her children in the west wing. How could she face them, when she abandoned them and let them be evicted from the house?

If she had been born a boy…

So many things would have been different. Her father would have raised her to take over his business and taught her to be powerful, rather than married her off.

She had a hand in how that played out, but she didn’t have a lot of options. She was a woman, and in her family, that meant weak and powerless. Enji had seemed like a life raft to get her away from her father’s control. She’d taken him to her bed and he’d followed without a word about the lack of birth control. Of course he hadn’t, but it wasn’t until much later that she found out his motivations for that.

Her father had reacted to finding out she was pregnant the way that she knew he would, summoning Enji for a confrontation. Mr. Yamaguchi’s reputation was in jeopardy, and that was something she knew her father would disown her rather than allow.

"You'll marry her immediately, or else we'll tell the public about the number two hero's shameful behaviour!"

It had been exactly what she expected him to say.

It was Enji that hadn't reacted the way she thought he would. His career was just getting started and he was all over the media, only twenty years old and already the number two hero, only surpassed by All Might. His reputation was important to his future. He should have been worried.

But he crossed his arms and his lip curled in disdain.

"Tch. I'll tell them myself. Is that all you wanted to say to me?"

When all her father had done was sputter, Enji had almost walked out, until her father got himself together and offered him a deal before he stepped outside the door. She’d sat and watched as Enji squeezed her father for a fortune and made him sign a contract backing Enji as the parent who would retain custody if anything should happen to challenge his guardianship of any children that came from their marriage, by paying for all of his legal fees and never offering themselves as guardians. He even made her father sign that he nor his wife would ever visit the children without Enji’s permission and supervision, and he’d legally sealed the deal by making Rei sign as well. To this day, her own mother wasn’t allowed to visit the house while the children were present.

She’d known before she married him that Enji didn’t love her. He’d been so blunt and reasonable about letting her out of the marriage her father was trying to force her into.

"Whether we marry, or not, the child belongs to me. I can raise the child myself, and you can continue your life as you please, if you’d like."

She’d only been eighteen, and had no experience that would get her a job or allow her to know how to raise a baby, and she knew the two powerful men sitting at either side of the table were both capable of using that to their advantage to pry custody away from her.

So, she’d accepted the marriage, to stay with her baby and to get away from her father’s house.

The first four years had been fine, good even. Enji never told her what to do, or displayed in any way that he felt females were inferior, the way her father did. He was busy being a hero, which left her to stay at home with her baby twins, and she’d loved being able to devote all of her time to them and not have a man around telling her what to do or demanding things of her. But then their quirks had manifested. Enji had become more involved in their lives.

She’d gotten pregnant with Natsuo in exchange for a cut back of Toya’s training hours. And again the same deal getting pregnant with Shoto to keep Toya's training from being increased again. Five years had seemed a long time to gain, a saving grace, as if so much would change by the time Shoto came around to being four years old. But nothing had changed. Enji was still singularly focused on his goal of raising the perfect hero, and her children were still small and breakable. The more they grew stronger, the more Enji demanded of them, so there was never a reprieve, never a time when things became easier to handle.

She loved her children, but maybe it would have been better if she’d never had them, if she couldn’t protect them from suffering. She wasn’t fit to be their mother.

-- TOYA --

“Mom seemed different. Like a ghost,” Fuyumi says. She wrings her hands and glances at the door now and again, like she can still see Mom standing there.

Toya makes a sound to let her know he heard her, but there isn’t really anything to say. Mom is deteriorating. That had been clear for months. He worries for her, but if anything is a revelation from their most recent visit, it’s that he has even more worries for Shoto, having to live with only her to comfort and take care of him, when she can’t even take care of herself.

“At least you don’t have to train anymore. I’m glad you’re here with us.”

Toya tenses, anger licking up inside his chest, but he looks down and clenches his hands, holding himself back from snapping at her. It feels so wrong, to imply that there’s anything good about Shoto being in training with Dad. But she doesn’t know what it’s like in the training room. He’s never told her, and he’s always said he was fine, that his biggest complaint was not having any time to himself or to hang out with her and other people. He didn’t want her to worry or feel bad, and so it’s not her fault if she doesn’t understand that Toya would much rather be in the training room than know that tiny, sensitive Shoto was there instead.

*

Toya leans against the wall beside the door, his fingers tapping in an anxious tick against his thigh. Ichi tilts her head around the corner to look at him and frowns, then goes back to the kitchen.

“It’s eight-thirty,” she says.

He doesn’t respond. He knows that each minute past eight-twenty lessens the chances that Shoto is coming, but he always waits until nine.

Footsteps swish on the other side of the door and he jolts straight, and turns. The door clacks and clicks as it unlocks, then it opens, and Dad steps back and Shoto steps forward, into the doorway.

Toya’s knees hit the floor in front of Shoto, a hand touching beneath his chin to check his face first, then his eyes roaming down as his hands stroke down his shoulders and arms. His eyes bounce up to Shoto’s eyes again, in a silent, Are you okay? Show me where you’re hurt.

It’s a routine they’ve gone through dozens of times, now, but instead of crying or letting Toya know anything that happened today, Shoto holds back his tears, so that even though his eyes are damp, nothing falls down his cheeks. He’s pale but with bright red blotches on his cheeks from too much exertion.

Toya’s face darkens. Dad is already training him to hide his pain.

“It’s alright. I’m fine,” Shoto says, echoing Toya’s own words back at him, and pain fissures Toya’s chest.

Shoto falls forward and wraps his arms around Toya’s neck, and Toya hugs him around his ribs, and a tiny pained sound comes out of Shoto in Toya’s ear. Toya knew it.

“You started combat training?” Toya says. It’s not really a question. He can tell. He turns his head and circles one of Shoto’s wrists and slides his hand down to his elbow, pushing his sleeve up, and finds bruises on his forearms that are familiar to Toya and he knows are from blocking. If he lifted Shoto’s shirt, he knows he’ll find more bruises where he wasn’t fast enough to block, but Toya doesn’t look. He doesn’t want to see them, when there’s nothing he can do about them.

He swallows down his turmoil and pulls Shoto close again. “I’m really proud of you,” he says. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Shoto.”

Shoto’s head turns to look back at Dad, and then his gaze returns to Toya. “Goodnight,” he says, and kisses Toya’s cheek.

“Goodnight,” he says, and reluctantly lets Shoto pull out of his arms.

He stays where he is on the floor, watching Shoto go down the hall as the door closes the sight away from him and the clacking of the door locking sounds.

*

The nights that Shoto doesn’t come to the door, Toya’s imagination torments him about what kind of injury Dad is keeping hidden, or how upset Shoto is about not being able to come because he couldn’t achieve some goal that Dad made the condition for being able to see his own brother. Toya is awake for hours, turning over plans in his mind of how to get Shoto away from Dad and escape with him. There aren’t a lot of options for a twelve year old kid to take care of Shoto, though. Getting away would only be the beginning of his problems.

*

Toya turns the page in his homework, and the paper flipping over is the only sound in the room. The darkness outside has turned the living room window into a mirror. Natsuo and Fuyumi are laying on the couch, each with an earbud, listening to something on Fuyumi’s ipod that she’s not allowed to have. Dad doesn’t permit personal electronic devices. They always cover it with a pillow if Ichi comes around, but Ichi is busy in the kitchen and doesn’t check on them. She trusts them, because they never make trouble and always use their manners.

A scream reaches them, muffled by distance and doors, and Toya’s ears prick and his head turns to the door that separates their apartment from the rest of the house.

Screams and crying often come from the other side of the door, to the point where they don't even acknowledge it anymore, but this time there's an edge to the screams that makes Toya's stomach clench more than usual and he can't ignore it. It sounds like more than distress or sadness. It's pain, grief, terror, urgency. Toya didn't think he would ever hear screaming that made the previous months sound like nothing was wrong, but this manages it.

Natsuo and Fuyumi are wide eyed, and look to him.

His school book thunks to the ground as he gets out of his chair and strides to the door. He pounds on it. "What's going on!"

No one answers him, and then the sounds fade and disappear, only to re-emerge from the window at the front of the apartment before being drowned out by a siren, briefly, before that cuts out. He runs and presses his face to the glass, and sees their front lawn lit up in the darkness by the turning red and white lights of an ambulance, and his heart beats hard and his lungs constrict. His father carries his brother, curled up in a ball, into the ambulance, and Toya is frozen for a moment with dread that prickles through his whole body, and then he takes off toward the front door.

When he makes it to the driveway, his father is gone with Shoto in the departing ambulance, and his mother is on her knees on the ground, hands covering her face, sobbing.

*

When he finds out it wasn't his father that hurt Shoto, but his mother, his emotions fritz. He’s overwhelmed by grief and confusion, his trust and love for his mother resisting the things he’s being told, trying to deny them. But he hears it from Shoto's own tearful voice, his head half covered in bandages. Mom said Shoto's left side was unbearable and that she couldn't raise him anymore, and then she poured boiling water on his face.

It’s decided in Toya’s mind, then. As soon as Shoto's wound is past the risk of infection, he’ll take him and go, one way or another.

Chapter Text

-- TOYA --

"Her psychiatrist won't allow me to go in, but I can take you there. Do you want to see your mother?" his father asks.

Toya's stomach rises as if to vomit itself out of his mouth and he clenches his fists and tilts his head down to let his bangs hang in front of his eyes, not wanting to look at his father, or be seen, either. "No, and if you take Shoto to see her, I'll burn this house down."

His father eyes him, silent. "You've disowned your mother," he says. "Understood. No need to burn the house down. Shoto is better off without her." He turns and leaves, closing the apartment door behind him, followed by the lock clicking into place.

*

It seems like forever for midnight to come, and yet too soon. Toya’s nerves tremble beneath his skin as he makes his way down the hall, feeling his way in the dark, his backpack weighing on his shoulders. He’s packed a warm hoody of his own that will cover Shoto from the top of his head to his feet with the hood up, if necessary, like a makeshift sleeping bag, and some apples and tuna, but left the rest of the bag empty for Shoto’s things. He makes it to the front door, and it only creaks a little.

Toya steps outside into the cool night breeze and closes the door behind him.

The guard post at the gate is far enough away that he's safe here, if he's careful. He spends a minute creeping along the huge house to stand under Shoto's window and looks up, taking the backpack off his shoulder and letting it slide to the ground.

Shoto's window is the only one with bars. They’d been installed a few days after his father banished them to the west wing. His father had never said anything, but it’s clear he suspects what Toya has been thinking. They're thick, close together, and made from a metal that isn't iron, which means it's harder than iron, not just to keep Shoto safe from any passing villain, but specifically designed to stop Toya. It would be a strain to melt it. His father was determined to keep him away from Shoto, but it wasn’t going to work. He’d get Shoto, and his father would never see his ‘masterpiece’ again. Shoto would live free, and Toya would make sure his baby brother had a happy life with hugs and days spent playing, far from here. They would forget they even had parents.

There was conspicuously nothing for Toya to use to get to the window, nothing to stand on, nothing to make a ladder out of, not on the whole estate. The tree that had been nearby had been cut down. The furniture in the apartment was unusable; the table had booth seats and the couches were heavy and unbreakable without making a lot of noise. His father wasn’t stupid.

If he used his fire to rocket himself up, he might as well set off fireworks announcing his presence.

Still, Toya had surprised his father more than once, and today he would again. He thought of his father’s face when he woke up and realized that his favorite son was gone, taken right out from under his nose. The bastard would lose his shit, and while Toya enjoyed the thought, he hoped that Endeavor didn’t scare Natsuo and Fuyumi. Toya had left them a note, but he knew they would be upset and wouldn’t really understand why he hadn’t told them. If he could, he would come back for them, but for now, Shoto had to be his priority.

His father was smart. Waiting for Endeavor to make a mistake was a losing strategy. If you wanted to win against his father, you had to use variables to your advantage that he didn't even know existed — like the screws and screwdriver in his pocket that he stole from a maintenance worker’s bag at school, and the fact that at midnight every night, the gate guard video chats on his phone to his girlfriend, something his father who slept early and rose early like clockwork would never know.

Toya sets a screw against the wall and uses the screwdriver to twist it into the wood siding, faint squeaking of metal against wood the only sound. He arranges them as handholds and toe holds, and climbs up onto them and jabs the next screw in enough to keep in place, then takes the screwdriver from his pocket and screws it in one handed. The screws that he holds onto cut into him, the pressure of his body weight pulling on his skin and tearing it away from his fingers in places on the threading, but for someone who has trained for years with Endeavor, it doesn’t even register to him as pain. He hardly notices it as he works, ignoring the slickness of his blood until it interferes and then wiping it on his shirt and getting back to work, his mind wandering to his plans, how he’ll pack clothes for Shoto and dangle him down closer to the ground and drop him carefully, how Shoto can freeze the guard so they can escape without Toya having to burn anyone, how they’ll live in an apartment together under a stranger’s name, someone that Toya will pay to fake being their guardian. He’s thought about his plan every night for weeks, down to what he’ll cook Shoto for breakfasts and how he’ll tutor him himself, until he can safely get him a proper teacher. How he’ll hug Shoto everyday and make sure he knows that Toya will take care of him, no matter what, that his love wasn’t conditional, like their parents’.

He peers through the bars and sees Shoto sleeping. He doesn't wake him. Toya is going to have to make his hand much hotter than would be safe for Shoto to be near. It's better if Shoto sleeps until he's done.

He starts working discreetly on the bars, melting them at the top and bottom, then dropping them to the ground below. They fall with muffled thuds, and he tries to space them out so they don't clang against each other when they fall. He tosses one and the sound is shorter, clipped. He frowns at the difference in passing curiosity, but continues.

He's getting hot, overheating from using his quirk, sweat rolling down his face and panting, but he's almost there.

A sound makes him look into the room, and Shoto is sitting up, rubbing his eyes and looking at him.

"Toya?"

"Hey," Toya says. That's all that he gets out.

The sweaty, bloody hand that's keeping him upright against the bars slips. His stomach jumps, but it's not serious — he just feels stupid. He can take a fall like this one and just climb up again — but one of the bars landed vertically into some kind of hole in the ground, and is sticking up. He sees the glint of moonlight off of its shape at the last moment, jolts with alarm and tries to twist and activate his fire to change direction, but a microsecond is not enough time to react sufficiently.

Metal stabs through his ribs, stretching them apart and tearing him, and this is a pain that Toya has never experienced before, being impaled. He makes a garbled sound that sets Shoto to a panic.

“Toya! Toya!”

Shoto's fire shoots out from above, lighting up the area around Toya, and Toya sees the puddle of blood, and the metal bar sticking up from the ground and disappearing into his side. His breaths are getting more shallow, his lungs filling up, and he knows what that means. Emergency medical knowledge was a hero skill, and as such, it had been ground into his brain as part of Endeavor's training. Fear fills his chest.

He looks up at the window and sees Shoto’s face, pale and stricken, tears trembling on the bottom rim of his eyes.

If he dies, Shoto will stay alone, Endeavor’s experiment, his prisoner. He can’t.

He takes a breath to say something, but the breath is too short, not enough to get more than a syllable out. Blood fills his mouth, and Shoto screams, high and piercing.

Footsteps pound into the room above. “Shoto!” Endeavor's voice.

Before Toya passes out, he hears a bark of a panicked voice and sees the orange light of his father’s flames behind his brother, then everything goes dark.

-- SHOTO --

They put his brother in a box and put him in the ground. The very idea of it destroys Shoto’s brain, makes him unable to think of anything else, unable to listen, unable to stop crying most of the time.

His dad sends him to the west wing with Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Ichi for a while, and Ichi hugs him, but Shoto squirms away from the unfamiliar woman’s embrace. He hasn’t lived with her like the others, doesn’t know her, and her presence gives no comfort. He tries to cling to Fuyumi, but Fuyumi has taken to hiding in her room, and doesn't want anyone to touch her, closes her door on him. Natsuo has gone silent, sitting in corners. After a while, his father comes back and gets him, and returns him to his own room in the house, where there’s no one around. It’s just empty, with Shoto alone. Soon after, his father brings him back to the training room. His father is a bit different at first, more pale and his voice is more gruff, but the daily schedule resumes, with his tutor and his training.

There are no more bargains for days outside or goodnights.

 *In the Present*

-- IZUKU --

He looks over, and there's tears on the woman's face.

"Sorry," Izuku says. He shouldn't have told her. She'd asked him what was wrong, but she was just a kind stranger, and he should have kept it to himself.

"No," she says. "Continue."

"Are you sure…?"

"There's more, isn't there?" she says.

He aches for Shoto.

"A lot more. Too much. I wish I could go back in time and be his mother."

"Do you really?" She perks up, and the interested look on her face gives him pause.

“I can’t stand doing nothing when people are getting hurt, and... it’s Shoto. He’s one of my best friends, and his past is still affecting his life, like a thorn too deep for me to remove. When he tells me about his childhood...I just want to fix everything for him.”

The old woman sniffles. “After hearing your friend’s story, I am inclined to let you. Wish granted.”

Izuku’s head jerks to look at her. “What?”

“That’s my quirk: Genie. If someone's wish is selfless, then I can grant it. I’m counting on you to make good on your promise. Don’t let me — or him — down!”

Izuku’s mouth opens, but none of his many questions get out before his vision turns black and he can’t feel the world anymore.

Chapter Text

The world appears again, a kettle whistling, high and piercing.

“Mom?” a little voice says, and Izuku looks at a small child with half red and half white hair, peering up at him with confusion and vulnerability on his face.

Izuku is used to anxiety, and recognizes the thumping of his heart and buzzing in his head as a panic attack. He feels his arm swinging out with the kettle in his hand, and a more rational fear spears through him. The young eyes in front of him, one blue and one gray, get wider, as Shoto flinches back.

Izuku changes trajectory just in time and fumbles the kettle, dropping it on the floor and splashing the boiling water up his own shin.

He lets out a cry and grits his teeth, riding out the pain of the burn that is fading from its initial bright flash into a throbbing sting that makes his eyes water, but despite the pain, relief fills him. It makes the burn ignorable.

A feather light touch on his leg radiates out a cool sensation that soothes the sting, and he looks at Shoto, putting a small hand on his mother’s leg, Izuku's leg, using his ice quirk to cool the burns. Izuku looks at his legs — only a bit pink now that Shoto acted so quickly. They’ll be fine; the way she must have applied it onto Shoto, for the water to burn through his skin…Izuku wants to vomit at the thought of this little Shoto screaming and being scalded.

Panting and trying to get himself under control, shaking at what almost just happened, Izuku descends to the floor and pulls Shoto into his lap, hugging him.

“What—” Shoto starts, next to Izuku’s chin, before his throat gets clogged with tears, his breath uneven, “—what does it mean, that my left side is unbearable?”

Izuku swallows, and it hurts all the way down and lands in his chest like a knife. He remembers saying the words into the phone a moment ago as if they came from his own lips. Remembers all the things that Rei Todoroki remembers. The kitchen he sits in, clutching Shoto, is one he’s cooked in a thousand times, and at the same time never set foot inside. This is his child, who he remembers birthing and holding as a baby. The things Shoto told him about his childhood are no longer just stories, but things he was there to witness.

I don’t think I can raise him anymore, he remembers saying into the phone, and he knows Shoto heard it, that Shoto thinks his mother is going to abandon him because there’s something awful about him.

How could he take something like that back?

Why couldn’t he have arrived ten seconds sooner and saved Shoto from hearing that?

Then he thinks about if he was ten seconds later, and can't help but be grateful for his timing instead. He could have arrived to a burned Shoto, and shortly after, been heading to a mental hospital, not even able to stay here and help him. The thought of Shoto being so badly hurt and then Izuku being separated from him sends a shiver of pain and second hand fear through him.

He brushes his thumb over Shoto's wet cheek, under his blue eye, the one that would have been burned, but is so thankfully untouched now, the skin pale and soft and unharmed. He can't find words sufficient to retract what was said, so he kisses Shoto's left cheek, then does it three more times. Shoto's eyes are round and startled, looking up at him and waiting for words. Izuku finds the best he can. "I know it's hard to understand, but what I said has nothing to do with you. It was about me and your father. There's nothing wrong with you, Shoto. It's the opposite. You and your siblings are all blessings. You make the world a better place, just by being in it, and the only thing that would be unbearable to me would be being separated from you. Nothing will ever take you away from me. I won't allow it. Okay?"

Shoto still looks taken off guard, but the fear and devastation have receded from his face, and he's calming down, his eyes stopping making new tears. Izuku collects the towel from the oven door and dabs Shoto's face. "There's no reason to cry now. I'm here, and I'm going to fix everything."

Shoto stares up at him with something like wonder and curiosity on his face. The way Rei had behaved up until now, it must be confusing to think that she would be able to do anything to help, let alone 'fix everything.'

The phone is lying on the floor next to them where Rei dropped it. Izuku picks it up to see if it survived. There's a crack in it, but he hits the button and gets a dial tone.

"Have you ever used a phone before?" he asks.

Shoto shakes his head, and looks interested.

Izuku adjusts Shoto to sit on his lap with his back to Izuku's chest, and distracts Shoto with a lesson on how to use the phone. He teaches Shoto their home number.

"If someone gets really hurt, you call 911," he says, going on with the lesson since Shoto seems so into it. "You tell them your name and where you are, and what happened, and they will send help."

Shoto seems fascinated, and Izuku smiles at how cute he looks when his eyes are full of wonder and entranced by the device.

"Come on," Izuku says, shifting to stand up, and taking Shoto's hand. He leads him out of the kitchen.

Izuku’s eyes catch on a tan couch with a pink blanket crumpled in one corner. I’ve spent a lot of time crying on that couch.

“Pathetic,” he remembers Endeavor saying to him, sending him a look of disdain as he passed through the room.

He walks past the couch, leading Shoto to the front hall and door, instead of trying to take up the usual position in front of the TV, and Shoto looks up at him, noticing the change. Lately, Shoto usually only gets outside on the walk around the wrap around balcony to get to Endeavor's training room. The rest of his time while not being trained by Enji is spent in the study with his tutor, or on the couch in front of the TV where Rei spends her days.

Izuku is always soothed by staring up at the night sky when he feels overwhelmed, and he could use that now, and he's sure Shoto could, too.

“Let’s go look at the stars."

He draws Shoto by the hand, out into the evening air. He finds a place on a square patch of grass in the courtyard and lays down and draws Shoto in next to him, resting his small head on Izuku’s shoulder, an arm wrapped around him. The air is cool, but not cold, just right for an ice user, and smells like the flowers nearby. The sky is clear of clouds, allowing a good view of the stars. Shoto’s small body is still, except for his breaths moving his chest, clinging to Izuku and not moving from the spot on his mother. Izuku combs his fingers through Shoto’s hair, his heart twisting.

He needs to make sure Shoto is okay, not just save him from a burn. He wonders how this wish thing works. How long will he be Rei? He feels like he's her, but he's also not her. He's got her body, her knowledge, but his own feelings and memories. Is she still inside this body somewhere?

“Rei!” The bellow from the house makes Izuku and Shoto both stiffen. “Rei!"

Shoto’s fingers clutch at his shirt, pulling it tight on the back of Izuku’s neck.

Endeavor sounds like he's on the warpath.

Enji is normally gruff and intimidating, but even in Rei's knowledge, Izuku has never heard him so loud and furious. Shoto is shaking.

“It’s alright,” Izuku says. “Head inside to your room. I’ll go see what your father wants.” He rises and gives Shoto a gentle steer in the direction of the side of the house, where the other door is, to get him moving away from Endeavor. Shoto goes, looking back over his shoulder, brows curled up in worry.

"It's alright," Izuku says, again, and smiles his best smile, the one he uses to reassure civilians.

Shoto stares at him for a second, but then his shoulders relax a fraction, and he opens the side door and slips inside, going out of sight.

Izuku makes a beeline for Enji, preparing himself to face whatever has gotten Endeavor so mad. He's used to Enji's temperament, more so in Rei’s memories than his own since Enji has calmed down quite a lot in his own time, but normally he's not Enji's frail wife. Still, he doesn't see Endeavor as a real threat. Rei takes Enji's anger much more seriously than Izuku himself does. She believed that terrible consequences would come from going against Endeavor's wishes, saw him as something akin to all powerful in her life, but Izuku can't see it.

Enji throws a second story door open and steps out on the wrap around veranda and his eyes land on Izuku. “Where’s Shoto?” he demands, like he's just slammed his way into an interrogation room.

Izuku’s brow furrows. Endeavor looks furious, but there’s an underlying tinge of some other kind of tension — of fear.

“I sent him to his bedroom," Izuku says.

Endeavor’s face gets even darker, if possible. “Don’t lie to me. I was just in his room; he’s not there.” He jumps over the railing in a burst of fire and lands in front of Izuku, stalking toward him, face determined, as if he’ll physically force his way through Izuku to get his son.

He thinks I tried to smuggle Shoto off the property, he realizes.

Izuku sets his face in a neutral expression, refusing to retreat, even though the heat coming off of Endeavor is painful on Rei’s delicate skin made for withstanding ice. “We were looking at the stars when you yelled like something was wrong, so I sent him to his bedroom and headed for you. He went through the side door.”

Something behind Endeavor’s eyes flickers, the man’s brain assessing and deciding his course of action in a microsecond; he grabs Izuku’s arm, his touch eliciting a sound from Izuku at how hot it burns, and Izuku is dragged across the courtyard, toward the side door. Izuku accelerates his steps to keep up, trying not to lose his feet from under him, and pushes his ice quirk out at the point of contact with Enji’s hand to protect himself. His quirk is untrained, barely a frosting over his skin — almost the same as the day Rei got it when she was four years old — and it keeps melting right away.

Endeavor shoves open the door and tows Izuku through the parlor room. He turns left to stride up the stairs, and halfway up, they can see Shoto over the landing.

Shoto looks at them from the hallway, shrinking at the sight of his father bearing down on him while dragging his mother by the arm.

Chapter Text

The circumference of Endeavor's arm gripping him is almost as big as Rei's waist. He's a beast, and Izuku feels small and weak being dragged along like a child.

But even if he wasn't at a severe physical disadvantage, he wouldn't fight back right now and exacerbate the violence, not when Shoto looks scared. So, when Endeavor stops, Izuku straightens up and does what he knows best when faced with scared children — he smiles.

"Dad was just worried because he couldn't find you. Everything's okay now."

He can see in his peripheral that Enji's head just turned to him. Izuku keeps his eyes on Shoto and doesn't even let his eyes flick to Endeavor, because that would make Shoto look over at his father, and right now Shoto is looking at Izuku and calming down, and straightening up from his cower.

“Go brush your teeth,” Izuku says, and pats Shoto's head, then leans down and kisses his cheek.

"Okay," Shoto says, voice small and timid. He still seems uncertain, but he turns and goes down the hall and into the bathroom, peeking back at him one more time before shutting the door. The water starts, creating a white noise in the background.

Izuku drops his smile with a sigh. The way Enji pushes her and the kids around! And Rei, she’s been breaking down for a while, no help to anybody. If Enji talks about what she’s been like for the past year, she’d never get custody of the kids, even if she got the guts to divorce him. She almost burned Shoto’s face with the kettle tonight. If Izuku were to suddenly be yanked out of her body and back to his own, he would be afraid of leaving her here with them. She’s unstable and incapable of making proper decisions. She wasn’t raised to know how to defend herself, or others, and can never seem to stand her ground on anything, even when it’s important. Even when it’s for her kids.

Enji’s a blind jerk, but his abuse is more rational. He won’t injure his kids past what they can heal, and there’s a purpose to it, a benefit to them in the end. He doesn’t just lash out at them, and won’t end up maiming or killing them by accident. He’s callous, but he’s the less dangerous parent of the two.

Of course, he's awful to endure and emotionally damaging, and Izuku can’t entrust the children to either of them. He needs to change things, to make this home safe for Shoto. He hopes his time in this body lasts long enough.

He turns his attention to Endeavor, and realizes that Enji has been watching him silently this whole time, and apparently cataloguing every microexpression that passes across his face.

“What are you up to, Rei?”

Izuku retreats and folds his arms, keeping them — one with a red handprint on it — out of Enji’s reach. “Just thinking.”

Enji’s eyes become even more piercing. “About?”

“About how I’m going to be a good parent. The best parent.”

Endeavor blinks, apparently not expecting that statement — or maybe it's the face Izuku's making. Izuku can feel that expression he gets when he's fired up that people have told him about, the one that makes people stare.

Izuku takes advantage of Endeavor being thrown off guard to leave.

“I’m sure you have hero paperwork, and I’m going to go help Shoto get ready for bed.” He walks away from Enji, and thankfully Enji doesn’t try to continue the conversation. The man heads to his office, even if it is slower than usual, and he seems suspicious still, glancing over at Izuku before he goes through his office door.

Izuku enters the bathroom to find Shoto standing on a stool at the sink, staring at his face in the mirror. He has a hand cupping his left cheek in deep thought, eyes sad and despondent. Izuku had told him there was nothing wrong with him, but Shoto had heard his mother's words on the phone, and had put two and two together. Seeing his father behave so awfully just now didn't help, not when he was connecting it to himself, like what his father did reflected on him, because he was somehow the same.

Izuku shuts the door, and Shoto jumps and turns to look at him. Izuku walks behind him and wraps his arms around him so that they’re both facing the mirror. He sees Rei’s face where his should be, her chin on Shoto’s head, but it doesn’t feel that strange, when he has her memories and, in a way, has seen that face in the mirror all her life. Her pale arms are around Shoto and her white hair cascades down over both of their shoulders. She's a pretty woman. Shoto got a lot of his ‘hottest boy in school’ features from her. But he has a few of his dad's charms, too.

He reaches up to brush Shoto’s red hair behind his ear. “Dad's got an unpleasant temperament, but he's also got a powerful quirk, and he's smart, and handsome. Not just anyone gets to be the number two hero, you know. All Might is the only one that can beat him, because Dad's amazing. So, you don’t have to worry; your left side is amazing, too." Izuku taps him on the nose. "Helping to make you was one of the best things he ever did."

Shoto looks up at him, and Izuku can see, in the boy's eyes, some of the burden lifting off of the child, and the beginnings of hope appearing.

*

He holds Shoto's hand as they leave the bathroom, and his eyes go to the apartment door at the end of the hall. He looks down and sees Shoto is looking at the door, too, an expression on his face that hurts Izuku's heart.

"Dad never told Toya whether we were coming or not, but everytime Dad brought me, he was waiting by the door."

Izuku abandons their path for Shoto's room and heads for the end of the hall, instead. Shoto's head jolts up to look at Izuku, surprise and then anticipation on his face, his feet getting faster, pulling ahead of Izuku a bit, extending Izuku's arm.

They arrive at the door, and Shoto looks up at him, waiting on pins.

Izuku taps on the wooden door. "Toya?"

There's a swish and the movement of feet, and Toya's voice comes, rushed and breathy, scared. "Mom?"

Just hearing his mother's voice through the door seems to have panicked him.

"Don't worry," Izuku says. "Shoto's right here. He's okay."

There's a beat of silence. "What do you mean by 'okay'?"

"Dad had a hero meeting for the case he's working on, so Shoto didn't train today. He's been with me all evening."

There's more movement, then a pat sound on the floor, and Toya's voice comes from the crack underneath.

"Shoto."

Shoto drops to the floor, too, and puts his cheek on the carpet, looking under the door. "Toya."

Izuku can't watch this.

"Toya, come around to the front door. We'll meet you there."

Shoto whips up straight and looks up at him, but Toya makes a worried sound. "But Dad…"

"Never mind Dad. He's not the boss of me."

Shoto's eyes widen at that statement, like he never knew it, and it's the craziest thing he ever found out.

"Come on, Shoto," he says, taking Shoto's hand to help him to his feet. "We'll be waiting for you in the front hall, Toya." He scoops Shoto up and carries him down the hall, past Enji's office door, and through the living room. Shoto clutches Izuku's neck, but turns around, his eyes trained ahead, on the front door.

Izuku sets Shoto down and opens the door, and they hear rapid footsteps, running around the side of the house and getting closer. Toya comes into view and throws himself in the door and down to hug Shoto.

Enji's office door opens, and the man steps out and glares. "What are you doing."

Shoto shrinks into Toya, tucking his head under his brother's chin.

Izuku steps in front of the kids, putting himself between them and Enji.

"Letting my child into my house. If you don't want a 279, then don't 283 me."

Enji's face gets stuck, then, and whatever posturing was going to pour out goes right back down inside the man, changing his expression. The fact that Izuku referenced the law section numbers like he knows them is probably more what stalled Enji than the crimes that the numbers refer to.

"Before you say anything, we're just visiting for a few minutes, and then they're going to bed. No need to get involved, unless you want a goodnight hug."

Enji folds his arms and frowns, staying to watch, obviously not intending to leave them unsupervised, but he doesn't say whatever's on his mind. He's pensive, and recognizes a puzzle when he sees one. Izuku expected as much from the man who had mentored him in his second internship in high school. But this puzzle was one he was going to have a hard time figuring out, since most of the pieces were invisible.

Izuku turns to the kids.

They're staring up at him. When Izuku leans down, Shoto throws his arms around his neck like he's a buoy in an ocean, and Toya looks from Enji to his mother and back several times with a stunned face, but doesn’t look comfortable saying his questions in front of Endeavor.

Izuku follows Toya’s gaze to Enji again, and the man is watching them with half of his attention, but the other half is typing something into his phone with a seriousness that piques Izuku's interest. Izuku wants to ask who he’s messaging at this time of night, but he knows Enji hates being asked unnecessary questions that are meant solely to slake someone else’s curiosity, so he focuses on the kids.

He wants to tell them that everything will be okay, but he suspects that will only raise more questions and worries in their minds, so he smiles and makes a more believable promise, something small to lift their spirits and hopefully let them sleep well tonight. “I’ve been distant lately, but I’m going to be spending a lot more time with you kids from now on.”

Toya’s brows jump up with curiosity.

Izuku grabs them both and tucks their heads under his before Toya can say anything. “We’ll do something fun together tomorrow, I promise.” He kisses both of their heads, then squeezes them.

A ding makes Izuku look over and see Enji pulling his phone out and looking at it. The way Enji’s face smooths out and lifts, Izuku knows he’s satisfied with the response that he got. He turns back to the kids while Enji taps out a response on his phone.

“Help me tuck Shoto in bed, and then I’ll come with you and tuck you into bed.”

— Aizawa —

Shota Aizawa stares, eyes half hooded in exhaustion, at his incomplete essay. It’s due in two days, and he keeps getting called to one emergency or another every time he tries to finish it. He won’t complete his teaching degree at this rate. Graduating from UA was no walk in the park, but being a pro hero and a student in university at the same time is brutal. Why did he do these things to himself?

He tilts his mug to look down at the empty bottom and finds it needs a refill. Oh, right. He wants to teach at UA, and he needs to pay for his supply of coffee while doing his degree.

He sighs and puts his fingers to the keyboard.

A ding sounds, and he turns his head to glare at his phone.

He picks it up, resigned, and swipes open the screen. His eyes land on the heading of the email, and his expression slackens.

That’s not his agency contacting him. That’s Endeavor Agency.

Shota clicks on the email with a furrowed brow.

The email isn’t just from the agency — it’s from the number two hero himself.

Why is someone like Endeavor contacting someone like Shota? It’s not logical.

A job...? Oh. He has a child and wants more security at his home. He wants the quirk Erasure on the premises at night.

He reads the terms of the contract, and it’s hefty enough to make Shota blink and read it again. It’s obvious Endeavor tailored the offer to ensure a yes, which means he specifically wants Shota’s quirk and doesn’t want to have to find someone else.

He replies with an acceptance, because he’s not going to turn down predictable hours and twice his current pay. He likes his current boss, but not that much. He’s sure Razor will understand.

Endeavor’s response comes within thirty seconds, making Shota wonder if this is just Endeavor’s natural efficiency, or if there’s some reason for urgency. He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

Chapter Text

-- IZUKU --

Izuku strokes Shoto's hair. "Are you tucked in right? Do you need anything? If you can't sleep or something, call for me. I'll come."

Shoto looks up at that, surprise flitting behind his eyes.

Enji locks Shoto's door every night, but Izuku can't be stopped by that.

"If I don’t hear you, knock loud. You can use something to bang on the door so you don’t hurt your knuckles.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight." Izuku kisses his cheek.

Toya leans down next and squeezes Shoto.

They finally pull themselves away and leave. Izuku and Toya walk around the outside of the house, and Izuku stops under Shoto's window. "Give me some light, Toya?"

Toya holds out a hand and makes a white flame, and Izuku sees his questioning face in the light that brightens up the area.

Izuku looks around at the ground and finds the hole. He fills it with a couple of rocks, kicks dirt into it and flattens it out. There. One less nightmare to have tonight.

Toya looks at him as if it's a weird thing to be concerned about, but doesn't ask any questions.

"Toya?" Shoto's voice comes from above, and Izuku looks up.

Shoto peeks out between the bars on his window.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Toya says, and gives a smile, but his eyes flick to Izuku and his smile falters, like he's silently asking, right? The kid has no certainty of being able to see his brother. It's out of his control and he doesn't know if his mother has the ability, either, despite her promise, and he looks worried about lying to Shoto.

"Yes, you will," Izuku says. "Try to get a good sleep, Shoto."

"Okay."

*

Izuku follows Toya to his bedroom door and hugs him, holding the back of his head to bring him close.

Toya puts his arms around Izuku's ribs and hugs him back. His hair tickles Izuku's earlobe. He's only a few inches shorter than Rei, now, and is strong, but still only a child.

"Thanks. For letting me see Shoto," Toya says, like Izuku had sacrificed something.

"That's going to be the norm starting tomorrow. Your dad is not getting his way all of the time anymore."

Toya pulls back to look up at him, his brows rising, scrunching up together in the center. "How?" he asks, but doesn't wait for an answer before asking more questions. "What was that you said to him? About the numbers, that made him stop like that?"

Izuku pushes his fingers through the top of Toya's dark red hair, and strips of it spike up messily in the wake. Toya doesn't react, watching Izuku's face.

"I was just reminding him of the legal definition of kidnapping, and that he owes me one, for letting him off with some rule breaking he did earlier. Please don't think about any of that, though. Just leave everything to me. If I need your help, I'll ask, but I don't want you doing anything on your own, okay? I promise Shoto will be safe now."

Toya studies him, his gaze flicking between each of Izuku's eyes, evaluating the statement, until he finally settles on choosing to put his hope in his mother. "Okay."

*

There's light under Fuyumi's bedroom door.

Izuku knocks. Then knocks again.

There's no answer, making Izuku frown. He opens the door.

Fuyumi is sitting up in bed, scrolling through an iPod. She sees Izuku from the corner of her eye and jolts, yanking the headphones from her ears. The way she's staring, wide-eyed, at Izuku, he knows her heart is pounding. Her cheeks are flushing while the rest of her face is going pale. It looks uncomfortable.

Just do as your father says, Rei had told her oldest children, wanting life with Enji to be as easy as possible, too afraid of conflict to make a stand for anything not crucial. She would have been upset to find Fuyumi risking Enji's anger by breaking his rule of no personal devices.

As the moment draws out, Fuyumi gets close to tears, emotionally wringing herself into a knot.

"It's okay," Izuku says, in a soft tone. "But I'm going through the content tomorrow, so make sure there's nothing inappropriate on it."

"Inappropriate?" the twelve year old girl blinks, displacing a tear and making it fall down her cheek.

"Lyrics that are rude, or depressing, for one," Izuku says. "If you feel bad, I want you to talk to someone and feel better, not listen to angry tunes, okay? And no swearing, or songs about drugs — I'm sure you can figure out what's allowed and what's not. We'll go through it together tomorrow, if you're not sure of some."

Fuyumi was still staring at him, her gaze having turned more pensive and unsure.

The girl was probably feeling bad right now, and his advice was ridiculous, considering Fuyumi's age and family situation, as if she might need to talk in some possible future situation. Bad stuff was already going down and had been for years.

Izuku walks in and sits on the bed. He hugs her.

He wants to tell her that everything will be alright, but Rei has no credibility after all the screaming and crying these kids have heard, and even hinting that Fuyumi's mother planned to stand up to Endeavor would only cause anxiety. "I love you, and I'm sorry I haven't been spending time with you," he says, instead. "I feel better, now, and I'm going to come everyday."

Fuyumi burrows into him, nodding her head against her mother's chest, arms wrapped around his waist.

"Hey. Can I borrow it for a few minutes?" Izuku asks.

Fuyumi stares up at him for a moment, taken off guard, then lets him take the iPod. He takes it out into a playroom that is empty and does what he needs to do, then returns it to her.

Natsuo is asleep. Izuku fixes his blankets around him and heads back to the main house.

-- AIZAWA --

There apparently is some urgency, it turns out, because Endeavor asserts enough that he needs to come right now that Shota sighs and leaves his home at nine-thirty at night to be thrown straight into a job after being awake for twenty hours already.

Endeavor’s home office is the size of Shota’s whole apartment. The walls are a cherry wood, and his desk is big enough to match the room, but the desk seems smaller than it is, when Endeavor is sitting at it. This is the first time Shota has seen Endeavor in civilian clothes, or without fire obscuring his face, but the man has an intensity about him that makes him intimidating even in jeans and a button down shirt. This is also the first time that Endeavor has ever spoken to him.

Endeavor’s home life is fucked up, it turns out.

“My wife won’t divorce me, because she’s afraid she won’t get custody of the kids. I suspect she and my oldest son are looking for an opportunity to abduct the rest of the kids and run from me,” Endeavor says.

Shota keeps his face unresponsive. This is not the job that Shota was expecting, but it’s not his place to have feelings about Endeavor’s family life. His opinion doesn’t matter, and he has no right to pry with questions that don’t affect the job he’s being hired for. He folds his hands on his lap and waits for Endeavor to explain the details that apply to Shota.

“This morning she would barely look at Shoto, the same as she’s been for months, and wouldn’t let him touch her, because it bothers her that Shoto is getting more and more like me, as per her own words.”

Shota has more trouble keeping his face neutral at that. Who takes something like that out on a child?

“Then this evening, she suddenly did a one-eighty and started acting lovey dovey with Shoto and making declarations that she was going to be the best parent. I don’t trust her.”

Shota nods, serious, because he wouldn't either, based on what he's hearing

“I’ve been locking Shoto’s door at night and putting the key in a safe while I sleep, but I can’t continue to do that.”

Obviously. It’s cruel, dangerous if an emergency happened, and afflicting the child because of something that isn’t his fault whatsoever. Also, 283, a parent keeping a child from another parent. You can’t lock a mother out of her child’s room without proof of legal cause, Endeavor! Shota could understand why he did it, but Endeavor was going to get himself in trouble if it came up with authorities and he couldn’t defend his actions well enough in court.

He doesn’t say any of that, though. Endeavor continues.

“Shoto is the baby of the family, and has always been spoiled. My oldest son in particular is attached to him, and when Shoto got his quirk and I started training him for heroism, Shoto cried a lot, and Toya overreacted everytime Shoto got a training injury. His mother wanted me to stop training him. The fact that I haven’t has created an unsurpassable divide between us. It’s something that we’ll never agree on. Rei is weak, and she wants to raise my children to be weak, and I won’t allow it.”

Shota doesn’t know what to say to that. From his point of view, it’s simple. Does the kid want to be trained, or not? But while it would be punishable by law to detain and force someone to train, that’s just considered responsible parenting when it’s your kids that you’re forcing. Endeavor has the right to train his son if he thinks that’s what’s best. The mother is the only one who could legally have a say in it, and even she can’t ask authorities to help her make him stop. There’s essentially nothing anyone can do against Endeavor’s choice.

Endeavor takes a picture out of his drawer and puts it on the desk. It’s a family photo.

“This is Toya,” Endeavor says, pointing to the red-haired boy. He’s standing as close to his mother, who is sitting on a chair, as he can get, even leaning over her slightly, and his fingers are laced with the child’s that is sitting on his mother’s lap, who must be Shoto. The two-toned little boy has his head turned and tilted up, looking at Toya, while Toya is looking at the camera. A girl is on the other side of the mother, smiling enthusiastically like she’s wholeheartedly trying to support this photo shoot, and a white-haired boy is standing in front of the girl, his smile showing a gap in his front teeth where he’s missing two of them, a head and a half shorter than her. Endeavor is behind the girl, his arms crossed, like he’s on a magazine cover rather than posing for a photo with his family. He’s not smiling.

“He’s the main reason that I chose you, because I need night security who can stop him from using his fire, and restrain him before an outburst or attack gets out of hand. I sent him and the other two to the west wing to be watched over by a nanny. He’s never been violent before recently, but with Shoto involved, Toya is swayed too much by his emotions, and I can’t rule out the possibility that he may try to take Shoto and run away with him on his own.”

Shota looks at Endeavor, then back down at the boys in the photo. They look like angels, but he knows they’re going to be problem children, because he already wants to adopt them out of their situation, and he hasn’t even met them.

Shota should just decline the job and go home. He doesn’t want to deal with children whose lives he has no say over, it’s too difficult to stand by and be helpless, but he also can’t turn this job down now that he’s seen their picture and heard their troubles.

He crosses his arms and burrows his chin in his capture weapon. “I’m not doing any overtime,” he says. “When six am comes, I’m leaving, and anything that happens here after that is not my problem.”

-- IZUKU --

When Izuku returns, Endeavor’s office door is closed.

Izuku pauses at the guest room where Rei has been sleeping to get away from Endeavor at night, but ultimately passes it by and heads for the master bedroom. If he avoids Enji, then what good will he do? He pushes the door open and walks inside. He goes to the dresser and pulls out one of Enji’s old t-shirts. The fact that it says UA on it comforts Izuku.

Enji walks in a few minutes later, a flicker of surprise in his eyes as he sees Izuku, but other than that, his face hardly changing.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Izuku says, both a statement and an explanation to Enji's silent look.

“Good. The cowardliness was unbecoming,” Endeavor says, with his usual bedside manner, and goes about undressing for bed.

Izuku has known Endeavor for years, though, and most of them were after his vow to be a good father, so the words don’t hit him the way they might have hit Rei. He knows Enji cares, underneath it all, even if he himself doesn't fully realize the extent of it yet, or know how to show it.

He flops onto Rei’s side of the huge bed that could fit three more people and hugs his pillow, on top of the covers, because Rei’s body likes the cold. Endeavor lifts the covers and gets under them on his side, snapping them over himself with his usual efficiency, all three of them, and Izuku chuckles at watching the huge guy bury himself under so many.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Izuku closes his eyes and concentrates on going to sleep — a skill that, like his old sensei Aizawa, he’d had to learn to do at any time, under any circumstances, in order to survive.

-- AIZAWA --

Shota sits cross legged against the wall beside Shoto’s room and works on his essay on his phone. The house is quiet, and now that he quit his other job, nobody is going to call him, and it’s a relief.

Then there’s a tap tap on the door next to him, hardly loud enough to be heard, and a child’s voice says, “Mom?” There’s no way anyone not standing next to the door would hear it through the solid wood.

Shota gets to his feet and turns the knob, easing the door open so he doesn’t hit the child.

The youngest Todoroki looks up at him, wide-eyed.

Shota drops to sit on his heels, so he’s not towering over and intimidating the kid. “Do you need something?” he asks.

“I-I just want Mom.”

“She’s asleep. Can I help? I work for your dad,” Shota says, to reassure the kid.

Shoto jolts and moves away from him. He shakes his head and runs back to his bed, jumping into it and pulling the covers over himself.

Shota rises to his feet, frowning. He considers the conundrum for a moment. “Do you want a glass of water?”

Shoto shakes his head again.

“Are you okay? Are you going to go back to sleep now?”

“Yes.” His voice is barely audible. Shota feels bad for scaring the kid, but he’s in bed and he’s behaving and Shota doesn’t want to wake up his parents in the middle of the night if nothing is wrong.

“Alright. Sleep tight.” Shota closes the door and resumes his place beside it.

Within moments, he hears sniffles and unhappy little sounds. The kid is crying now. That can’t be ignored.

Shota slides his phone into his pocket and walks to Endeavor’s door and knocks. “Mrs. Todoroki, Shoto is asking for you—”

He barely has the words out before the door is whipping open and there is the woman from the photograph, in nothing but a ratty UA t-shirt that reaches her knees and was probably Endeavor’s by the size, eyelids fighting to blink away sleep. She stares at him for a moment, then rubs her eyes and looks at him again.

“What...what?” she asks, seemingly at a loss for more words. Her eyes roam over him and stare at his face. Then her eyes go to Shoto’s door, and she seems to toss him from her mind, rushing past and pushing into Shoto’s room, following the crying.

Endeavor makes a grumpy sound and rolls over in bed, going back to sleep it seems, which is fair. This is why he hired Shota, to watch over the night so he could sleep with Shoto's door unlocked and avoid consequences for breaking the law.

Shota moves a few steps over in the hall to get an angle that he can see into the little boy’s room. He’s sitting up and leaning into his mother, arms clasped around her ribs, shaking and crying.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Todoroki asks, an arm around him and a hand stroking his hair.

Shoto’s voice stutters several times with his sobbing. “I thought Dad wasn’t going to let you come.”

Shota tenses, reminded that Endeavor sent Shoto’s siblings to another part of the house. It’s clear the kid has anxiety about being separated.

Unfortunately, it’s not illegal, and besides mentioning his opinion to Endeavor, there isn’t a damn thing Shota can do about it.

He shouldn’t have taken this job.

Chapter Text

-- AIZAWA --

Mrs. Todoroki pulls Shoto into her lap, tucking him into her as close as she can, and rocks him. “It’s okay. I’m here,” she says.

The kid is traumatized, that much is obvious. Shota has a bad feeling in his stomach.

Shota steps into the doorway, folding his arms. “Sorry. It’s my fault. He asked for you, and I tried to appease him myself instead. I should have just gotten you right away.”

Mrs. Todoroki looks at him, and Shota isn’t sure what to make of the look in her eyes. She has questions, he can tell that much, but there’s also something else in her expression, like she’s getting more information from observing him than there should be available.

“Your husband hired me a few hours ago for night security,” he says, explaining. “My name’s Shota Aizawa.”

“I see...” He can hear the thinking in her voice, can see the gears turning behind her eyes, as if slotting information together. “Enji did something good,” she says, as if surprised to find out her husband did something worth approval and pleased for it.

Shota cocks his head in question, but she turns to Shoto. Shoto has drawn away from her chest to see her face, wondering about her words, waiting to know what his dad did that was good.

"This is Eraser Head," she says, to her son, stroking the child's hair behind his ear, and something inside Shota startles at hearing his hero name. Since when do people know Eraser Head? "He's one of my favorite heroes.” Favorite? “His quirk is super cool. He can look at someone and turn their quirk off. Even All Might could lose a fight if Eraser used it on him.”

That’s...technically true, but he has no idea how strong All Might is without his quirk and that’s if he could even see All Might coming, so it’s only a 'possibility' in the strictest sense of the word. “But Eraser is really nice. You don't have any reason to be afraid of him, okay? He's only here to protect you."

Shota puts effort to not show his surprise at the well informed but overly generous introduction, and turns his attention to the boy. "Nice to meet you."

Shoto presses his forehead against his mother's neck, curling into her, but his eyes can be seen peering up at Shota from under Mrs. Todoroki’s jaw. "Nice to meet you," he says, low and shy.

Endeavor had described the boy as spoiled, which made Shota think of tantrums and refusals, but Shoto seems to want to please and obey — so far, he tried to do what was wanted of him, even when he was scared or uncomfortable. Even when the kid had been crying, it had seemed genuine and personal, not in any way trying to get attention, not to mention the way he had tapped on the door and called his mom in such a tiny voice.

Now Mrs. Todoroki turns to her son with a serious expression. “Listen, Shoto, when I told you that no one but All Might could beat Dad, I only meant on the billboard ranking that we watch on TV, and only by the heroes currently competing,” she says. That 'something' inside Shota lurches to attention again, horrified that she’s about to tell Shoto that Eraser can win against the boy’s father. Endeavor is in the other room and can possibly hear this—

“If Dad and I fight, I’ll win,” Mrs. Todoroki says.

Okay, that sentence went a completely different way than he was expecting.

Shoto looks at his mom, eyes widening as his brows go up, but it’s calming the kid down.

Mrs. Todoroki’s expression is so unwavering when she says it, like it’s a fact, that even Shota's gut reaction is to think she must have some way to back up her words, so he can't blame the boy for believing her without any explanation, regardless of how powerful his father is.

Shota has no reason to think so, other than the look on Mrs. Todoroki’s face right now — which is frankly riveting — but that look is enough to convince him that Endeavor may be in more trouble than the man realizes.

-- SHOTO --

Shoto never usually meets new people. The few times in his life where he was introduced to someone, they commented on him like he was an object, or moved on without paying attention to him, focusing on adult talk. Eraser Head looked at him fully, like he was really seeing him and paying attention to him, and that was overwhelming. He didn't know what to say to someone who was so special that they were one of his mom's favorite heroes. He hadn't even known that his mom had a favorite hero. And she said he could go up against All Might!

And then Mom said something even more amazing. If Dad and I fight, I’ll win.

Mom had never looked at him like that before. All the times Dad had pushed her or made her cry jumped to his mind, but Mom didn’t look like that at all now. She didn’t look sad, or afraid. Something had changed, and even though Dad was huge and strong, Shoto couldn’t help believing her when she looked at him like this, like she was strong, too.

His mind conjures different scenes, trying to imagine what a fight that his mom won against his dad could possibly be like.

“C’mon, let’s get you back to sleep,” Mom says, and lays down, her arms around him and taking Shoto down with her. “I’ll tell you a story,” she says.

The tale she weaves distracts him from his spinning thoughts, though they still hover in the background.

Shoto falls asleep to the sound of her voice, and the sensation of her fingers stroking through his hair, and he feels better than he has in a long time.

-- IZUKU --

It'd be nice to take Shoto to bed with him, but he doesn't want to risk Enji saying anything emotionally damaging, so he stays in Shoto's room until Shoto is asleep, and then creeps out of the small bed, past Eraser with a quiet nod, and back to his own with Endeavor. He doesn't bother being quiet once he's back in the room with the door closed, dropping onto the bed and bouncing it, and it doesn't take much for Enji to wake and look at him with one glaring eye, his hair sticking up and his face groggy.

"Next time, I'm bringing Shoto to bed with me. I'm warning you now, because if you say one negative word about it within his earshot, you'll make him anxious, and if he gets anxious, I'll be very upset with you."

"Tch. He's not coming to our bed. He's too old to be—"

"That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. But if you say it to him, you'll scare him, and I'll be furious. Proceed with that knowledge as you will."

Enji just glares at him and rolls over, not bothering to answer, like sleep is more important.

Izuku didn't expect him to back down, so he's not surprised, but he'd had to say it. Someone had to start telling Enji these things and planting the seeds of these ideas in his head. He'll have to be careful not to let Shoto get touched by this.

*

Simply knowing that an alarm is set for a certain time always makes Izuku wake up before it can go off. He knew Enji's clock was set for 4 am, so he's not surprised when he blinks groggily and sees digital numbers saying 3:58.

Izuku rolls off the bed. Working out in the morning is a habit he's accustomed to, and being Rei is not going to change his routine. He's still a hero, and there are still people that need saving. Having this wimpy female body with an as-yet-untrained quirk is a slight setback, but he'll train it up, just like he did his own wimpy body before going to UA. He goes to the dresser and takes out a tank top and sweatpants.

The clock changes to 3:59. Enji usually wakes up before it, but getting to bed later and having his sleep interrupted seems to have thrown him off.

Izuku pulls on his clothes.

The alarm starts blaring.

Enji's eyes snap open, then dart to Izuku. Enji's arm reaches and lands on the alarm clock without looking away from him. He seems startled at being woken by his clock, which probably hasn’t happened in a long time, but then that recedes. "You're not going to stay in bed and cry?"

"Tch," Izuku says. He may have spent too long around Ground Zero and picked up a habit, but Enji did it to him first. He pulls Rei's hair up into a ponytail and bands a hair elastic around it. "Shut up, Enji," he says, without heat. "I'm starting my training today."

Silence meets this declaration, though Enji’s face is doing some things.

"It's going to be a bitch, isn't it?" Izuku comments, mostly to himself, looking in the mirror at Rei's figure and opening his hand and pushing out a pathetic amount of cold that condenses the air white like a breath in winter. He could make some ice, but even making cold air seems to take about a quarter of his energy output abilities.

"If you do it right," Enji says, watching him while moving out of the bed to get his own clothes on.

"I'll do it right," Izuku assures, in a tone of resolve. No one could ever accuse him of lacking dedication, not even when standing next to Endeavor.

Enji stares, as if trying to figure out something that doesn't fit.

Eraser is in the hallway, the same as Izuku had left him. He looks so young, and tired, and stoic, but his skin is smoother, no scars, face shaven. He’s Izuku’s age, or the age he used to be. Izuku is also Rei now, who is thirty, and he has memories as if he’s lived both lives, which is a lot more years when combined. Does that make him mentally 51 years old?

He still feels young, even if he has more information at his fingertips.

“If Shoto wakes up, please bring him to me in the training room,” he says.

"Okay, Mrs. Todoroki." Eraser nods to him, and even if he doesn’t make much expression, Izuku knows him well enough to see that he’s paying attention and making his own deductions about this house and it’s occupants, and he knows that Eraser will protect Izuku’s kids in the end.

Izuku nods back with a small, appreciative smile, and turns and heads to the training room.

*

He thought he felt weak dragging his first tire on Dagobah beach with a nerdy middle schooler’s body. This is like going back to elementary school strength. He struggles to try to pull himself up into a chin up, and it’s like his blood is all trying to push up into his face and his arms are shaking.

Endeavor is doing his own training while watching him, and Izuku can see the gears turning in the man's eyes.

Izuku can’t do any chin ups, not even one, but trying still breaks down his muscles and that means progress, so he keeps struggling and pulling himself up anyway, even if he is mostly just holding himself halfway up toward the bar, until his muscles give out and he’s forced to drop and land on his feet in Rei’s white running shoes. He shifts to the floor to do sit ups, already panting.

“Square your elbows,” Endeavor says, and Izuku’s elbows flare out without a pause, continuing the sit ups smoothly. He’s used to taking direction, and is frankly glad for the reminder. He's not used to a body so weak that it tries to compensate for doing a sit up. Actually, he's used to being too strong for a simple sit up to be a viable exercise anymore.

“Thanks,” he says, not looking over as he continues. Rei is better in this area; he manages to do forty, which is more than he thought she’d be able to do. He goes back to the chin up bar and forces his arms to try again, because he won’t be satisfied until Rei’s muscles are torn all the way down. He’s too impatient to get strong again to leave any opportunity untaken; he’s going to do it as fast as possible.

After forty-five minutes, his legs are wobbly like jello, he's sweaty, his mouth is dry, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he fell on his face trying to walk down the hall to the shower.

“Not bad,” Endeavor says, apparently too affected by his wife’s determination to not say anything. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Thanks,” Izuku says, because he doesn’t want to ignore Enji saying something to Rei that's actually — kind of? — nice, but he leaves without another word. Working out is so normal a thing to Izuku, that it doesn’t feel like a compliment that means anything. He hasn’t done anything special. If Rei had been the one to get up in the morning and do it, that would be a miracle, but he’s just Izuku, number one hero of another life, who’s been working out like his life depended on it for over eight years now. Enji does the same thing.

He gets to the bathroom and showers, scrubbing his hair, only a passing thought of the strangeness of having a woman’s body, because Rei’s memories buffer everything in familiarity. He’s scrubbed down this body thousands of times before, and also hasn’t, like with everything else about Rei.

He goes around the outside of the house to the apartment, his legs still rubbery. Ichi answers, but it’s only 5 am, and the kids are still sleeping. He tells her to send them over for breakfast at the main house at 6:00.

He returns to Shoto's room, giving Eraser a nod and studying him in passing, feeling both fond and worried at how tired he looks, plans of how to take care of his old (young) sensei running in the background of his head. He carefully opens the door and sees Shoto limp on the bed, his head slightly to the side, breathing softly, still fast asleep.

It's wonderful to look at the little boy's porcelain skin, unblemished by the scar that Izuku had always known on Shoto. He won't be over that for a while.

He sits on the edge of the bed and leans down and kisses Shoto’s forehead, and Shoto’s eyes flutter open.

A smile rises to Izuku’s lips as he looks down at Shoto blinking out of sleep, cute and mussed. Shoto’s hands reach for him and he’s rising off the bed to get closer and clutch, like he always does, but then his movements turn stiff and his hands grip Izuku’s shirt tightly, tension in the little boy as he looks at the window, at the morning light streaming inside.

Shoto doesn’t ever look forward to new days. His mornings and afternoons have been unpleasant, at best, ever since he got his quirk and began school lessons and quirk training. An hour in the evening watching TV is the only time the kid gets to himself, and for the past few months, his mother has been shooing him away and wouldn't even cuddle with him, so he's been sad and alone during that time, too.

Izuku’s smile falls, and he strokes Shoto’s head and pulls him close, curling over him to wrap him as much as possible in his own body. “I’m going to come to your studies with you today. Would you like that?”

Shoto clutches him harder, but his face is troubled. He doesn’t say anything.

Izuku frowns and strokes Shoto’s hair back from his forehead. He doesn’t like the look on Shoto’s face, but doesn’t press, intending to see everything about Shoto’s schooling for himself today anyway, and instead distracts him. “What do you want for breakfast? Choose anything you feel like.”

Shoto is brought out of his state and looks up at him, the diversion a success. “Bacon?” Shoto says.

Izuku kisses his forehead. “You got it. Let’s go start cooking.”

He scoops Shoto up.

Six years might be too old for being carried everywhere, but Shoto is small and huggable, and resisting is hard when Shoto's body language blares that he craves touch and he always clings so comfortingly when being held.

*

The children arrive five minutes early. Izuku has a knife in his hand at the cutting block, and his eyes go to Enji, keeping a watch on his reaction, ready to intercede.

Enji is already sitting at the table, freshly showered, drinking tea and answering emails on his phone. He looks up and blinks.

The children pause at his gaze, then tip toe in and find their way to their places around the table, making themselves as unnoticeable as possible, eyeing their father but only in short flicks of their gazes, their heads down. Even Toya is showing anxiety and respecting Enji’s table rules, and it doesn’t take Izuku more than a second of watching to realize that Toya is afraid of messing this up and being kicked out again.

Izuku sets breakfast on the table and sits, and Shoto immediately drops down to his knees next to him like he’s just been waiting for Izuku to land within reach, a small cheek pressing hard to Izuku's upper arm and a small, cool hand encircling his wrist.

As he’s clinging to Izuku, though, his eyes are more open than usual, and looking over his siblings with a brightness and wonder. Having them there is definitely affecting him.

Toya is looking at Shoto from under his bangs across the table. He's not as obvious, but Izuku can tell his spirits are similarly raised and hopeful.

"Good morning," Izuku says. The children look at him, but that's the only acknowledgement they give, used to being silent at the table.

Enji takes in and then disregards the fact that the children are present, taking no issue with it — but then his eyes turn onto Shoto.

Izuku tenses for war.

"Why were you out of bed last night?" Enji says. "You—"

The knife in Izuku's hand spins and weaves around his fingers, and Enji's reprimand stops as his eyes flit to it. The knife handle settles into his palm before the children follow Enji's gaze. Seeing no reason for their father's odd stop, their eyes go back to Enji, waiting to see what it's about, bewildered and a bit frightened, knowing their father's temper and harsh rules.

Shoto has shrunk and is hiding by Izuku's side. Izuku looks down at him and kisses the top of his head. "I'm glad you woke me, sweetie. We had a nice cuddle, didn't we?"

Shoto looks up at him, the words unexpected, but after the split second of surprise, he nods. His eyes then go to his father, timid. But Enji is no longer paying attention to Shoto. He's peering at Izuku.

"Eat your food, Enji. Just because you're the boss, doesn't mean you can be late."

"Of course it does," Enji says, snapping the reply out on reflex, brow furrowing.

It hits Izuku as funny for some reason — maybe it's partly relief and amusement that Enji could be so easily distracted from the tension that had cropped up — and a laugh bubbles out of him.

All five of them stare at him.

Chapter Text

-- ENJI --

Rei tosses her head back and laughs, and he and the kids just stare.

Ever since she’d declared she would be a good parent, something had come over her. If the house hadn't been surrounded by home security, he would think she had been swapped with a doppleganger (he’d checked the video feeds this morning and confirmed nothing had come into contact with her). Suddenly, she comforted and took care of the kids instead of crying. She worked out instead of sleeping in. She looked Enji straight in the eyes like she would take him on, and she twirled a knife through her fingers like an experienced killer.

It took skill to make a blade move like that. She had to have known how to do it for years. But she hadn't had the nerve to show it off, until now.

Has she really succeeded in turning over a new leaf overnight? Rei?

Everything he knows tells him it's not possible, but he's looking at her with his own two eyes.

-- REI --

Rei notices a strangeness about her environment before she even opens her eyes. The bed is firmer, the blanket is rougher, and it smells like candy. She’s frowning when she opens her eyes, and gets stuck for a moment staring at the only thing in her view, which is an All Might action figure inches from her face.

Her heart jumps. Who put it there?

Enji’s going to be angry.

Did one of the kids get one somehow and he found it and put it there to confront her?

No. She recognizes it, new memories fading into her head. The bed is hers — his. Izuku’s. Mine. It’s strange and she feels confused for a moment. Is she Rei, or is she Izuku? How can she be both?

Is she dreaming?

She closes her eyes tight, but the bed and smell stays the same, and she knows she’ll still see All Might when she opens her eyes.

His white teeth grin at her.

“Izuku! Breakfast is ready!”

Mom. Her other mom, the one that belongs to her small, green haired boy self—

Boy. She’s a boy.

Rei hops out of bed and runs to the bathroom across the hall, leaning up on tippy toes to stare with wide, blinking eyes into a freckled, little boy face.

“I’m a boy…”

She feels breathless with the realization.

She’s not a wife anymore. She doesn’t have a father anymore. It’s just her and her single mom.

It’s like a dream come true.

“Izuku? Are you awake?”

“Yeah, Mom! I’ll be right there!”

Mom. Green hair like her, gentle and would never hurt her. Plays All Might games and puts up with watching All Might videos over and over for her. Mom is safety and fun and happiness. She loves Mom.

Rei goes back to her bedroom and opens drawers, changing out of All Might pajamas (everything in the room is All Might themed, it makes it feel like an Enji-free safety zone) and into blue shorts and a white shirt that has All Might’s face on it.

Quirkless. I’m quirkless. It doesn’t matter to Rei, she never uses her quirk anyhow, but this is something that greatly distressed her in her Izuku past and resulted in bullying by some of the bratty six year olds at his school, and he has some rotten teachers, too. There are a lot of hero aspirations in her head, but she discards them immediately. The last thing she wants to be is a hero.

It takes a few minutes, disoriented by all of the new memories and confusion of having two selves, for her to start really wondering how she got like this. It’s not normal for thirty year old mothers to become the six year old children of random strangers.

What about her kids? Not that her being there did them any good. Nothing has changed for them with her gone. If anything, she was a burden to them.

Still. She needs to find out what’s going on with them.

She goes out to the kitchen. Mom sets a plate on the table, and Rei falls onto her, hugging her tightly around the waist and burrowing into her stomach. It’s comfortable, and comforting. Mom is soft, and holds her and rubs a hand through her hair. Mom squeezes her, then says, “Hop up and eat before it gets cold.”

Rei does as she’s told. The food is delicious, like always.

“Time to go. Here’s your lunch,” Mom says, sliding it into Rei’s backpack.

“I don’t want to go to school.”

Mom stops what she's doing, startled, and turns and looks down at Rei. "Why not, Izuku?"

Izuku never told his mom about his bullies. Rei doesn’t understand that. She'd always told her mother everything. Even if her mother couldn't do anything about it, it was one of the only things that kept Rei together, being able to talk to her mother and get sympathetic noises in return. How could Izuku survive bottling everything up inside and never telling a soul?

"The kids are mean to me. Kacchan hurts me, and the teachers let him, and get mad at me if I cry."

Having said her piece and gotten an aghast look from his mother, Rei turns and picks up the All Might backpack and slips it over her arms, because the woman has to go to work, so Rei will have to go to school today anyhow, but the woman grabs her up and squeezes the breath out of her. "Oh, Izuku! Why didn't you tell me?"

Rei checks his memories for the answer, then says, "I didn't think you could do anything about it, and I didn't want to disappoint you."

The woman's eyes go wide in horror, and then she bursts into tears and constricts Rei's breath again. She wasn’t expecting it, but at the same time, it seems normal, because a bunch of memories of his mom crying over any emotional thing come up from her Izuku side of her brain in response.

Mom takes her by the hand and walks her to Kacchan's house. Mitsuki bitches out Kacchan and grabs him by the back of the shirt when he tries to leap at Rei and explode her for telling on him. Mitsuki makes Kacchan go to school and then babysits Rei while Izuku’s Mom is at work. She cooks for her and spoils her with sweets and tells her to pick any of Kacchan's toys that she wants and she can have them. Rei takes his All Might action figure and trading cards, because she knows they’re his favorite, and a couple of comics, because they’re something she can do that isn’t playing pretend with kid’s toys.

The brat deserves whatever punishment Aunt Mitsuki gives to him. Rei has scars from that explosion quirk. He was going to grow up to be like Enji, or worse.

Mom didn’t go to work, though. She went to Izuku’s school, and she comes back only two hours later.

Mom smiles, but Rei can tell that underneath it, she’s angry.

“So, you’ll be suing?” Mitsuki asks.

“Oh, yes.”

“Good.”

Rei stands there and stares up at them, in awe. These women are nothing like her mother. Uncle Masaru wouldn't dare say or do the things that Enji or her father do.

Rei wants to be like these women.

“I already took Izuku out of the school and I have an appointment to enroll him in a new one. Let’s go, Izuku.”

*

Rei looks over at the building they’re approaching, then jerks her head to look a second time, eyes wide. “This is my new school?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “And if anyone bullies you again, you tell me right away this time, okay?”

Rei is still staring. She’s only been here a couple of times, on her children’s first days as they became of age to attend. She’s going to school with her kids.

Mom takes her hand and leads her inside.

She sits on a chair and quietly waits while her mom does the paperwork, and then a teacher comes to take her from her mom and escort her to class.

It’s grade one, so she’s set at a desk amongst a bunch of six year olds, and five plus seven is the hardest work she’s given. Then it’s recess, and they’re freed. She follows the mob of kids outside.

She stands by a swing set and scans the playground. The school is a private institution that takes ages from kindergarten all the way up to grade nine, so there are all sizes of kids running around, walking on the field, or chatting in pre-teen groups.

Three of her children are here somewhere.

A rock skitters by her feet and she pivots to see a boy scowling at her. "Hey! Are you deaf? We're playing heroes and we need a villain. You're going to be the villain."

"I'm not playing," she says.

The boy points at her and his eyes scrunch almost shut as he tips his head back and yells, "Get the villain!"

There are yells like war cries — this is ridiculous, heroes don't act like this — and Rei is suddenly facing a mob of children running at her and they're bigger than her. Children are terrifying from this point of view. They're like overgrown crazy people.

She spins, her heart jumping into her throat, and runs. She heads straight for a teacher whose back is turned as she cares for some other child, but then she sees a head of dark red hair and changes course.

"Help!" she says.

Toya turns to her, then his eyes move past her, to the group chasing her, and his eyes harden and his mouth presses. She looks over her shoulder, but the kids are slowing and their mob is losing its shape, disintegrating under Toya's gaze.

It seems her son has an affect on them.

She swallows and catches her breath and keeps walking toward him. It's strange, having to look up at him. He's like a giant to her.

"You okay?" Toya asks.

"Yeah. You scared them away. Thanks."

"You give some scary looks, Toya," a girl says, mouth stretched with mirth. She and a boy are hanging around with Toya. Fuyumi is sitting cross-legged on a large decorative rock nearby, doodling and listening to an iPod. Rei furrows her brow, knowing that Fuyumi knows full well what will happen if her father finds out about the device. It's careless and asking for trouble. She almost says something, but refrains, remembering that she's in a six year old stranger's body, but it's difficult.

Toya turns back to his two friends, and shrugs. "Good. It works on them.”

She stands by and watches them interact. She's just a little kid and they don't pay her any mind as they talk. She studies Toya and Fuyumi for any sign of the fact that their mother has disappeared, looking for stress, but they seem more at ease than she's seen them in a long time. Toya's shoulders are loose, and there's no anger or sadness in his eyes. Had Enji somehow covered for the fact that she was gone? What had happened to her other body? Was she dead and they didn't know it yet?

"I'm glad you're standing still and talking to us again," the girl says.

Toya shrugs, but he looks uncomfortable at the subject. "Things were bad at home, but they're better now."

Rei looks at him in confusion. She doesn't understand what that could mean. Yeah, things had been bad, but they were still bad yesterday. Besides her leaving her body, what could possibly have happened in that much time?

Chapter Text

Izuku takes Shoto's hand and heads to the other end of the house to meet Shoto’s tutor. Shoto slows down in the hall, dragging his feet and falling behind Izuku.

Izuku gets a wary feeling, and squats down. “What’s wrong, Shoto?”

Shoto hesitates. “I don’t remember everything from the lessons.” He almost whispers it, like it’s a shameful admission.

“That’s okay,” Izuku says. “No one remembers everything.”

“They don’t?”

“No. You’re a great student. I already know that you’re smart.”

Shoto’s eyes open wider for a split second — and he glows with the praise. “I am?” But then he dims. “Are you sure? Dad and Mr. Yorik don’t think I’m smart.”

“They don’t say that you’re smart, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t think you’re smart. You have a great mind, Shoto, and they’d be blind not to notice.”

Shoto seems to feel better, at that, so Izuku feels better, too. He rises and continues to the study, and Shoto stays beside him this time, his hand in Izuku's.

Izuku studies Shoto as they walk. He’s looking ahead, his eyes tense and his mouth serious. He looks prepared for a long battle of attrition, rather than just a day in grade one.

Izuku keeps his thoughts to himself, for now, but files them away.

They enter the study and Mr. Yorik is waiting there.

“Thank you for dropping him off.” Mr. Yorik doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown. He seems very calm and in control of his surroundings.

“I’ll be sitting in on his lessons today,” Izuku says.

“That’s unnecessary, and to be frank, will only be a hindrance. You understand,” the teacher says, as if he can casually make a ruling and expects his will to be respected.

Izuku keeps his mouth shut for a moment and just thinks and observes.

“How have his lessons been going?” Izuku asks.

Mr. Yorik’s eyes flick to him and get a gleam. He pulls out a binder and flips it open. “This is the list of kanji and other topics I’ve taught him so far. We’re at this point,” he puts a finger on the page, “and that’s where we’ll be starting today, and I plan to go to here—” he draws his finger down the long list of small type print and stops at a line far below. Then he starts flipping pages. “Of course then there’s math, and history—’

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Izuku says, holding up a hand, palm forward, to stop him. You think it’s you that’s accomplishing the learning here? The man seems proud of himself. A memory pops into Izuku's mind.

”What have you been teaching these kids, Eraser!” Present Mic exclaims over the PA at the sports festival, floored at class 1A’s performance.

“This is all them," Eraser denies.

“There, you have it! Eraser Head is a terrible teacher!”

Eraser Head was the best teacher Izuku ever had, tied only with All Might.

This teacher needs some humility and a reality check, but that’s just a distraction from the point and not a debate he wants to waste time on with this self-important man. “Why are you pushing him so hard?” he asks. This is way beyond what a six year old is expected to accomplish. And Shoto had thought his mother would be disappointed in him. Mr. Yorik obviously wasn’t even praising Shoto for doing so well. He only praised himself for everything that Shoto learned.

The edges of Mr. Yorik’s mouth turn down and a wrinkle forms between his brows. He looks at Izuku like he’s an idiot, and a reprehensible one at that. “The more I can teach him in the amount of time we have each day, the better,” he says, like it would be immoral to not work oneself to the bone in matters of education.

“That’s not how I feel about it, so let’s just take it easy and give Shoto some breathing room, okay? I don’t want him hating school.”

Mr. Yorik claps the book shut and stares Izuku down. “I really think it would be best if you left me to do the teaching, Mrs. Todoroki. I'm the one with the teaching degree, after all. What's more, I’ve cleared everything with your husband and he’s given me instructions and I don’t plan to disappoint him.”

Izuku settles himself inside, sliding away unhelpful emotions and facial expressions, but they're there, waiting for their time.

"Go ahead and teach your lesson, Mr. Yorik."

"Thank you. We'll see you at three, then."

"Oh, no. I'm staying." Izuku sits on the floor next to Shoto's table.

Mr. Yorik looks down at him with a pinched mouth, but visibly shoves his annoyance down inside and moves on without saying anything more about it.

Mr. Yorik starts to quiz Shoto with review questions from yesterday's lesson, and Izuku gets distracted watching Shoto answer. Even at six years old, his ability to remember details is impressive. He clearly inherited his father's brain. After being home schooled all his life, teenage Shoto had been oblivious that anyone had to do more than just listen in class to get good grades at UA.

Then Mr. Yorik asks a question and is met with silence.

Instead of answering, Shoto makes a face of shame and apprehension and puts out his hands.

Mr. Yorik lifts and whips his pointer stick down without a thought, like it's habit, uncaring of the way Shoto flinches and closes his eyes as he sees the punishment coming.

Shoto opens his eyes with confusion at not feeling a hit, looking up at Mr. Yorik, then at the stick that both Yorik and Izuku have a hold of. He looks at his mom.

Izuku squeezes his fist, pressing his thumb against the stick. It snaps in half and the broken off piece clatters to the table. "Don't hit my kid."

Mr. Yorik stares at Izuku, then drops the surprise from his face, turning to one of condescension and self-righteousness. "It's merely a small consequence for failure. Children need motivation—"

"Pack up your things and leave. You’re fired."

His stomach is sick, thinking how Shoto has been physically and mentally tormented everyday from 9 am to 7 pm for the past year.

“I think this will be best settled by a call to his father. You can work it out with him.” Mr. Yorik takes out his cell phone.

“Fine. I’ll call him.” Izuku holds out his hand.

Mr. Yorik puts the phone in his hand. Izuku can see the superiority and lack of fear in the man’s eyes. He believes Endeavor will be on his side and that Endeavor will overrule Rei. He’s probably not wrong to think that yesterday, but today is different.

Izuku dials the police department. He knows the number by heart, for obvious reasons from his past life.

“Hello, my name is Rei Todoroki… yeah, that Rei Todoroki. I have a trespasser on my property. He was my child’s tutor and I fired him but he refuses to leave my home and claims that only my husband can fire him. Can you send an officer?”

Mr. Yorik’s eyes bug in indignation and horror.

“Thank you,” Izuku says, to the dispatcher. He holds the phone out to Yorik. “Do you want to speak to them?”

Mr. Yorik snatches the phone and ends the call with an angry jab. “You’re wasting police resources. I’m calling Endeavor and getting this sorted.”

Izuku folds his arms, watching.

Yorik waits while it rings, then a tinny voice answers.

"I need to speak to Endeavor,” Yorik says. “I'm his child's teacher and there’s a problem that is delaying his studies. It's important...yes, I understand what the word important means!"

While Yorik is still trying to make it past the secretary to talk to Enji by trying to convince them that Shoto’s schooling is as important to Enji as Enji’s job (good luck), Izuku leans down and hugs Shoto.

“Message? No. I—” Mr. Yorik cuts off and looks at his phone.

“I guess we’ll just go out and wait for the police, then,” Izuku says. He takes Shoto's hand and heads out, and Mr. Yorik storms past him in the front room and stalks out of the house, making Shoto flinch away at the angry man's passage, and Izuku picks him up to hug him close and safe. Yorik goes across the driveway and straight out through the gates as the security guard hits the button that makes them start opening.

Well, that’s that then. Guess he doesn't want to talk to the police.

“Call the police and let them know we won’t need their assistance, that the trespasser has left.”

“Trespasser…?” the security guard says, surprised and bewildered, taking a second glance at the back of Mr. Yorik, a man who he’s probably seen coming and going for over a year, then back at Izuku.

“Just call them,” Izuku says.

Izuku is certain Shoto won’t miss the man, but the confrontation and shaking up of his world has Shoto hiding in Izuku’s neck. Shoto’s fingers clutch at his nape and his hair tickles against Izuku’s jaw while the boy clings. Izuku takes him to find somewhere comforting, somewhere without bad memories, and it’s depressingly sad to realize there’s nowhere to go in their home that is associated with good things. So Izuku takes Shoto somewhere new; he takes him to his siblings’ wing of the house.

The place is quiet and deserted, the children gone to school, but Shoto raises his head from Izuku’s neck and looks, the lure of getting a glimpse of his siblings’ mysterious apartment drawing him out of his shell. His eyes change for the better, filling with wonder as if he never expected to be able to see this place. His gaze roams over everything with interest, and when Izuku puts him down on his own two feet, he goes easily, taking Izuku’s hand but not clinging to his side, too busy looking around, and Izuku can see his urge to explore radiating from him. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Shoto look like that. They walk through a living room. There’s a rumpled blanket on the couch and a checkerboard on the coffee table. A kid’s novel is open and face down on a rocking chair, holding someone’s spot. It looks lived in, cozy.

Izuku takes Shoto to the hall, and pushes open the first door. “This is Natsuo’s room,” he says. He lets Shoto walk in and look around, the boy circling the room slowly, looking but not touching anything. He stares for an extended moment at a toy robot.

“I’m sure Natsuo won’t mind if you play with it, as long as you’re careful and put it back where you found it,” Izuku says.

Shoto glances at him, then sits cross-legged in front of the robot and picks it up like it’s made of glass, inspecting it and slowly repositioning the legs and arms with small, gentle fingers, eyes riveted, and Izuku can tell that he’s smitten with the toy even though he doesn’t so much as crack a smile.

Izuku sits next to him on the carpet and combs his fingers through Shoto’s hair to fill his own need to stay in physical contact, while he watches him explore the robot.

*

They take their time visiting each of the children’s rooms in turn, not opening any drawers or being too nosy, but looking around at what is displayed on the shelves. Shoto finds a blue triceratop dinosaur in Toya’s room that fascinates him, and hugs a pink pony-shaped pillow from Fuyumi’s bed.

They find a separate recreation room, where Izuku reads him a storybook from a shelf, and then Shoto plays with a bin of blocks for half an hour. When it gets close to lunch and their tummies rumble, they snoop through the fridge in the kitchen. Izuku lets Shoto help make his own sandwich, and it ends up piled with five slices of cheese and a pickle, no other condiments. Shoto seems to really enjoy it, though, so it seems he knew exactly what he wanted.

When Izuku tells him it’s time to go and leads him by the hand, Shoto looks so sad it hurts Izuku’s heart, the boy looking back at his siblings’ home with desolate eyes, like he’s saying goodbye forever, a place he longs to be, but will never be allowed to be a part of.

Izuku picks him up, needing to have him in his arms and wrap himself around him. “You won’t be separated from your siblings anymore, Shoto. You can come here again later. We just need to make dinner, okay?”

Shoto’s head spins to look at him, as if to check something he’s not sure he can believe. “I can come stay with Toya?”

“I’ll make sure.”

Instead of the smile that Izuku was trying to get onto Shoto’s sad face, Shoto bursts into tears.

Izuku squeezes him to his body, tucking Shoto’s head into his neck, and rocks him in a gentle twisting motion, feeling anxious. He hates that Shoto has been traumatized like this. “Shh, it’s okay. Things are going to be different now. You can play with Toya and Fuyumi and Natsuo.” Shoto’s fingers curl in his shirt and grip. Izuku combs his fingers through Shoto’s hair while he rocks him. Shoto’s lungs jerk and shudder and Izuku’s shoulder and neck become wet.

“Dad will get angry.” His voice is small and despairing.

“It’s okay if Dad gets mad. I told you. I’ll win.”

“How?”

Izuku kisses his temple. “Very easily, I promise. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s go make something yummy for dinner. I left a note for Ichi to send your siblings over to eat with us, so we should make the things that they like, right?”

Shoto sits up on Izuku’s arm to look him in the face and wipes his sleeve across his cheeks, soothed by Izuku's reassurances and interested in the prospect of working on a dinner that will make his siblings happy.

*

They’re washing and cutting vegetables, Shoto distracted with thrashing celery through water and tipping it to funnel the liquid down the curved stalks like water slides.

Then the front door clicks and swishes, making Izuku turn and look toward the sound even though he can’t see the door from the kitchen sink. The temperature in the house seems to get warmer by half a degree.

Enji is home early.

The man steps into the archway of the kitchen, observing their activities with disgruntled eyes and a flat mouth.

“I received a message from Mr. Yorik. He said Shoto didn’t do any schoolwork today.”

Izuku turns back to the counter and chops the last of the vegetables on his cutting board and sweeps them into the pot. “Mr. Yorik is incompetent. I’m going to find a new teacher for Shoto.” He looks over at Shoto, who is twisted to stare at his father, frozen like a deer in headlights. “Shoto,” Izuku says, gentle. “Finish washing those up.” Shoto looks at him, then glances at his father again before turning his back to Endeavor and washing the celery. Izuku steps behind Shoto, and puts his front to Shoto’s back and kisses his head, staying there, and Shoto’s tension eases, his fear lessening with his mother’s body surrounding him.

“If he’s had a break all day, then let’s not waste anymore time. Shoto, to the training room.”

Shoto tenses in Izuku’s embrace, and he can feel Shoto’s heart beating against his forearm that is across his little chest. Shoto starts to move, but Izuku closes his arms around him more firmly, stopping him. “Dad and I need to talk for a minute. Go to your room, just for a little bit, and I’ll come get you when we’re finished.”

Shoto’s neck cranes to look up at him, hope and curiosity and fear all warring on his little face in turmoil.

Izuku smiles. “Don’t worry.” He kisses Shoto’s nose. “I’ll win,” he says. He lifts him down from the chair by his underarms and sets him on his feet. “It’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

With that promise, Shoto scampers off.

“What is this about?” Endeavor asks. He folds his arms and looks ready to be irritated over drivel.

“You’re not training him anymore.”

Endeavor's expression darkens. “That’s non-negotiable.”

“I agree,” Izuku says.

Enji drops his arms and huffs, losing patience, no longer willing to give her his attention. He stalks toward the hallway that Shoto went down, and Shoto jumps, still in the hallway from peeking at them.

Izuku steps to meet Enji before he can get to Shoto.

Rei's been brushed off by Enji a hundred times before, and knows just how Enji's arm will come up. He dodges under it and jumps and slaps his hand over Enji's eyes, icing them.

Enji gives a roar of surprise and anger and his head bursts into flame to melt the attack, heat scorching the air and making Izuku lean away, but even after the ice is gone, Enji's eyes are red and blurry, damaged. Izuku is already dropping sideways to brace himself on the counter when Enji's arm lashes out. Izuku uses the leverage of his hold on the counter to put strength into his kick, ramming his heel directly to Enji's crotch with everything Rei's body's got.

Enji makes a high squawk about the pitch of a whistle, folding to the floor. He's curled up, not even trying to protect the rest of himself.

Izuku feels a pang of sympathy. Maybe that was a bit harder than necessary. He just hadn't wanted to take any chances; if he didn't take Enji out immediately, he risked subjecting Shoto to a drawn out scene of violence and losing the upper hand, and he couldn't risk losing when he'd promised that he would win.

He stands guard between them, his back to Shoto. He searches his head for something to say to Enji, something to de-escalate the situation.

Beep-boop-boop.

Izuku turns at the sound, and sees Shoto with the white cordless phone to the side of his head, comically big compared to his little figure. A voice can be heard, but too low for Izuku to tell what it’s saying. By the fact that Shoto only dialed three numbers, he can guess.

"My dad is hurt," Shoto says, his tone distant, as if he's just relaying a fact, stunned. There's more chirping of a voice Izuku can't make out, and then Shoto answers, "My name is Shoto Todoroki and I'm at home. He lost a fight. He's on the floor and not getting up." Another pause. "Yeah, that's him. Okay, thanks," he says, in his little child voice. Shoto puts the phone back, but it doesn't click into the handle properly, and Izuku can hear the 911 operator still trying to talk, but Shoto doesn't notice. He looks a little dazed, in shock, and is staring at his dad and mom.

Chapter Text

AIZAWA

There's a sourness in the back of his throat that defies coffee gulping and he can’t get rid of the heaviness in his stomach. He wishes he could blame a virus, but he knows that it's his subconscious reminding him through indigestion that there is a child, who is afraid of his father and isolated from his siblings, being trained to be a hero at the age of six at Shota’s workplace.

”I thought Dad wasn’t going to let you come.”

Shota doesn’t want to read into that — just thinking about it is as fun as eating glass — but sadly no one else seems to be around to do it, leaving the job to him, so thoughts cling to him of a sobbing boy, fingers clutching his mother’s shirt.

Endeavor isn’t a well liked man, but he’s respected. Shota himself has felt the relief that comes when Endeavor shows up on a precarious scene, because Endeavor and victory are close companions. Even heroes that were known for being dedicated to their training thought Endeavor overdid it in the dedication department, and he made genius use of that time spent. The man had revolutionized the common thinking of fire quirks by doing things no one had considered a fire quirk could do. He had cultivated the control to turn his fire into goddamn spears and used his heat to melt cement under his feet to run up the side of buildings like he had an anti-gravity quirk. His fire was trained to be extremely powerful and could destroy almost anyone and anything, and yet he trained his body and his mind as if they were his main weapons.

He’s an elite, and he’s rude and intimidating and doesn’t accept human weakness as an excuse.

Shota can only imagine how difficult it would be to have him as a teacher in high school (or as an adult, for that matter), let alone as a child.

The kid has the timid demeanor of someone that believes bad things will happen to him that he can't stop. He looks small and fragile, and acts starved for comfort and approval.

And Endeavor is training this kid.

”Shoto cried a lot, and Toya overreacted everytime Shoto got a training injury.”

Knowing Endeavor, something as simple as stopping to put a bandaid on would be an ‘overreaction.’ The guy despises weakness, and in his own child, it would probably be criticized and enforced even more. And he'd cut Shoto off from anyone that sympathized, leaving only his mother, whom Endeavor stated wouldn't let Shoto touch her before yesterday.

Shota flops backward onto his bed and closes his eyes.

*

He wakes a few hours later.

He’s tired, and he just wants to be able to enjoy his coffee, but the feeling in his gut won’t leave him alone.

It’s not like he wouldn’t go do something right this instant about the kid’s situation, if he could.

His contract protects Endeavor's privacy, so he can't even talk about any of it unless he sees proof of law breaking — not just a style of parenting that Shota doesn't agree with. Endeavor had admitted to locking the child away from his mother at night, but he’d hired Shota to fix that problem, so it was gone now, and Mrs. Todoroki didn’t seem to be intending to go to the police, meaning there was no case for Shota to witness for. Besides the fact that he has no desire to sic the law on the number two hero and see all the fallout that would entail, both on the country and on the man’s household, he couldn’t open the case on Mrs. Todoroki’s behalf.

He thought about Mrs. Todoroki, and what Endeavor had said about her. That she shunned Shoto until recently.

She would make a hell of an undercover agent. She’d put on quite the show of a concerned parent. He hadn't seen any sign that her actions had been contrived.

If anything had hinted at a shrewdness and ability to plan behind the scenes, it was the way she knew and described Shota’s quirk. No normal house wife memorized underground heroes in that much detail.

He remembers the determined and self-assured look she’d given Shoto, and finds himself deep in his head, staring at her again.

He shakes his head and sets his half full coffee mug on a counter on his way to the door. He’s going to switch to the stuff with whipped cream for today. Maybe that will settle his stomach, or at least the walk to Yaya’s coffee shop will help with the stress and some fresh air with the nausea.

*

Yaya’s is a popular destination for law enforcement. They have good coffee and it’s not too expensive. There are two police cars in the parking lot when Shota gets there, which is not unusual. An officer coming out of the door with a to-go cup in hand nods to him, and Shota nods back.

Then the sound of the officer’s radio reaches Shota’s ears.

“—available units to 277-1040. Endeavor’s residence has been attacked by unknown assailants and Endeavor is down. I repeat, Endeavor is down. All units—”

Shota gets a chill down his spine. The little boy flashes through his mind, crying in his room, and hiding in his mom’s neck, and looking up at Shota, timid but polite and trying to do what he’s told through his discomfort. Is that little boy watching his parents die, being killed, being kidnapped…?

The cop is fumbling to keep his hat on as he rushes to get back in his vehicle, and Shota runs to the car and yanks open the passenger door, throwing himself inside. The cop sends him a glance, their eyes meeting, before the cop looks ahead and slaps the dash, and the sirens come on as the cop floors it out of the parking lot.

The look on Mrs. Todoroki’s face pops up in his mind again, and the way she’d recognized him on sight and put his quirk into simple terms for a child and compared it to All Might. She had clearly put in some time and effort to research and analyze heroes and quirks. The kind of preparation work you would do to put together a team of quirks to take on someone like Endeavor. Were these unknown assailants recruited by her? Had she ‘won’?

Shota’s stomach rolls, and he feels prickles under his skin.

Putting aside the fact that she’d be battering or murdering her children’s father, she would be exposing the children to the criminals she had made a deal with, and even if she managed to not get caught by police, living with a fugitive mother who was always looking over her shoulder is the kind of stress that kids don’t need. And the one time Shota saw her show love to her child did not negate reports of her being negligent to him in the past.

If this was orchestrated by her, he hoped she hadn’t invited wolves into her home without insurance of some kind to protect her and her children.

Whoever these villains are, with Mrs. Todoroki or not, they’d better not touch that kid.

Please be under your bed.

When they pull into the driveway, there’s a cop car already there. The officer is talking to a guard that has a newspaper hanging from one hand and looks between the cop and the house with a surprised face. Shota can't hear them, but just from his body language, the guard seems to know nothing, like he didn't even know something had happened.

The scene is confounding and too peaceful, making the hard thumps of Shota’s heart stand out even more.

More cars are pulling in behind them as Shota gets out, and more heroes arriving.

Who made the 911 call? Did Mrs. Todoroki call on her way out?

If he and his mother just disappear without confirmation that he’s alright and going somewhere safe, Shota will be haunted by memories of little Shoto forever. He needs to lay eyes on the kid.

The cops are fanning out and sending heroes to surround the mansion and cover exits.

Shota focuses on the front door, rushing ahead on a mission to find a child.

ENJI

His body folds itself up, a high sound bleating out of his throat against his will. For a moment, the pain is all encompassing, and he doesn’t have any motor control.

Enji isn’t a stranger to pain. He considers pain a friend, a positive indicator that his workouts are effective, and something he can inflict on opponents to win. But he’s gotten so good at fighting and dodging. His fire makes an effective barrier that keeps villains at a distance, and he’s so much stronger than most people, that it’s been a while since someone has gotten a good hit in on him, and least of all in a way that forces his body to react and basically shut down.

He feels her attention leave him, and despite the instinctive anger of being hurt running hot through his veins, he allows the fight to end without retaliating. She got the drop on him, but he’s been warned now, and he’s bigger and better than her. Anything he did to attack her would just bring unwanted consequences on his head — like the law, or his kid being even more emotional, or his house burning down.

He’s vaguely aware of Shoto mumbling about his dad being hurt and his name and then the clatter of plastic on plastic of the phone being resettled. What the hell? Did he just call 911?

“Are you okay?” he hears Rei say, and he knows by her tone and the direction of her voice that she’s not talking to him, but to Shoto.

Enji’s eyes are sore, his vision is like looking through a foggy window, and his balls are beginning to tighten from swelling. He needs to do something about them, before the pain increases back up to incapacitating levels.

His body finally beginning to respond to him, he drags himself up, and finds his eyes meeting Rei’s.

He doesn’t know what happened to Rei yesterday, but he knows that something did. She wears her expressions and says her words like she’s a different person, and yet she moved around the kitchen cupboards and their bedroom drawers knowing where everything is and making the exact same recipes, humming the same songs under her breath. Nobody seems to have made any contact with her, but there’s obviously something going on that he can’t see. Beyond all her other weird behaviour, novices projected their moves when they fought — and she didn’t. Enji would have been able to dodge if she had, but she struck like a snake from a blind spot, and followed it up like it was automatic. If Enji had just met her and been asked to assess her skill level, he would say that she was a seasoned fighter who had fought opponents bigger than her on more than one occasion. Then there was the knife spinning this morning. It all added up to a picture that made no sense. Logic was linear, cause and effect, but there didn’t seem to be any cause for these effects. She had no damn training and no incidents to explain her changes.

Something is missing from this picture — missing from his knowledge.

Sirens announce that the police are on their way. Goddamn it. He can’t even stand straight.

Chapter Text

ENJI

Enji adjusts the ice pack on his lap. The cold is numbing some pain, but also is uncomfortable in its own right. No one ever enjoys the feeling of ice on their balls, but it’s a lesser concern than the swelling at the moment.

Rei heads for the front door with Shoto in her arms, and Enji tenses from his place on the couch. “Where are you going?”

“To open the door, so they don’t break it down.”

Enji’s scowl withers. It’s a good point.

She opens the door and then walks away to the kitchen, her and Shoto both staying safely within his line of sight.

The sirens are louder with the door open.

He wipes his eyes again, pissed that they’re still watering when the police are about to arrive.

Rei moves about the kitchen with Shoto on her hip, like nothing is wrong — but he notices her hand shaking as she sets a glass on the counter and pours some orange juice. His eyes go to her arm around Shoto, where the sleeve has rucked up to show the edge of the red mark that his hand left on her yesterday. He glances up at her face and finds her eyes already on his. They evaluate each other for a moment, trying to see into each other’s heads, and then she looks away.

The version of her that he knew before yesterday would fall over herself to assure the police that everything in this house is exemplary, and would be embarrassed for any shortcoming they might find, but she’s not bothering to clean counters or put on the kettle, and not explaining to Shoto that he’s made a mistake or coaching him to apologize to the officers for a false alarm — in short, she’s being about a hundred times less annoying than usual and isn’t spewing paranoia about preserving the family reputation in that way that’s so much like her own parents it’s nauseating.

Instead, Rei is putting on a pleasant countenance for Shoto and keeping him calm and happy. Now and then, when Shoto looks away from her or tucks himself into her neck, that glint of determination in her eyes from yesterday shines through. It’s a look of resolve, a look that indicates she will be taking actions, to whatever drastic measure may be required.

It’s a look that is familiar to Enji, but is completely out of place to see on Rei — it’s a look that he usually associates with heroes, specifically ones who are about to go into a probable-suicide mission.

What the hell is going on in her head?

The sirens cut off, and Enji sighs, resigning himself to putting up with his coworkers barging into his house while having to keep his temper in check, so that Shoto isn’t too scared to call 911 ever again just because he yelled or refused the medical care his kid called for.

AIZAWA

The door is open. No one in it, just hanging open ominously.

An open front door with no people in sight has never been a good sign. His veins constrict and his heart beats hard.

He runs inside, eyes glowing and hair floating, capture weapon in his hands — and finds Endeavor sitting on the couch.

Is he... crying?

Shota's stomach hits bottom and his veins freeze.

“Mom.” Shoto’s voice is a whimper, but it’s like heaven to Shota’s ears, relief exploding in his chest, as Mrs. Todoroki comes from around the kitchen archway into view, Shoto in her arms.

Shoto looks scared — but only of him. The kid stares at him, huddling closer to his mom’s neck, fingers clutching Mrs. Todoroki’s shirt.

“It’s just how Eraser’s quirk always looks,” Mrs. Todoroki says, splaying a hand on Shoto’s back.

Shota throws his capture weapon around his shoulders and eases his stance. He's disconcerted by the fact that she even knows what his quirk looks like, but not surprised, at this point.

The fear in Shoto’s eyes lessens, but he still stares. Shota knows what he looks like with his quirk activated, so he can’t blame the six year old.

With Shota’s anxiety so reduced, the adrenaline still going through his body comes to the forefront. Shota’s hands shake with it, and he crosses his arms and clutches his elbows to clamp down on the trembling, leaning back against a wall and tucking his chin into his capture weapon. He deactivates his quirk, letting his hair fall back down to his shoulders, as several police officers run into the room, along with two other heroes.

He does a scan of the place and confirms again that the only other person in view is still Endeavor, sitting on the couch with just enough wrongness to his posture to imply that he’s injured. There’s no sign of damage to the house, yet Endeavor is clearly damaged, the area around his eyes red and watering and an ice pack in his hand. The fact that he’s not chasing after whoever did it to him is enough to conclude that the villains are nowhere within reach.

Shota is too relieved to see little Shoto unharmed to care what the hell happened to Endeavor or who did it. His eyes keep going back to the boy, raking over him for signs of injuries, whether physical, or emotional, but for a child at the scene of a crime, Shoto looks surprisingly at ease.

Officer Ueno is at the front of the group crowding through the front door. “Endeavor! Are you okay?”

Endeavor makes a small growl — much quieter than usual, so much so that it seems out of character, and it draws Shota’s attention. “I’ll be fine,” Endeavor says. He's acting like someone is watching and he can't be seen acting out of line. It makes Shota suspicious and he glances around again.

Ueno frowns and glances around the home. The blond man pushes his glasses up with a finger as he puzzles at the untouched surroundings, then turns his eyes to Endeavor again. “What happened?”

“Nothing. We had an — argument," Enji says.

“An...argument?”

Everyone in the room except Endeavor looks at the only other adult on the scene, Mrs. Todoroki — a soft-looking woman holding a child — and they all collectively slow blink. Then they look at Endeavor again.

“With who?” Ueno asks, and the police all stare at the fire hero, waiting for the answer.

Endeavor narrows his eyes at them like they’re intolerable idiots.

Eventually they understand without him saying anything.

I'll win, Shota remembers.

“That little thing made him cry?” someone says, from the back of the group.

“You take her on, then, Buchi,” Endeavor says, inviting, as if he would enjoy it.

That endorsement-slash-admission to the insignificant looking female in front of them managing to injure the number two hero doesn’t help the heroes and officers in the room get their brains back online.

Chapter Text

-Izuku-

The front room is flooded with law enforcement and heroes, as is to be expected under the circumstances. Izuku is used to being stared at by crowds, or else the way they’re all looking at him after Enji’s words might have seemed like a big deal. Right now, he’s not paying attention to them, his mind too occupied with trying to predict how things will go and what he can do to protect Shoto. Everything rides on Enji and whether he decides to keep the status quo, or to bring scrutiny and divorce down on Rei for this turn of events. Even if Izuku thought he could win — and he doesn't, not without revealing time travel and blackmailing people that he doesn't want to blackmail — he just wants to fix Shoto’s family life, and slinging mud with Enji in court does nothing to further that goal, especially when the kids would be with strangers that whole time, and with the way court goes, who knows how long that would be.

“Uh, well. Let’s go in the kitchen and take your statement while the paramedics look at your husband, okay?” the blond officer at the front says.

*

Izuku holds the kettle under the tap, and Shoto turns the knob, using teamwork since Izuku’s arm is occupied holding Shoto and he’s unwilling to put him down.

“Enough! I don’t need anymore medical attention!” Enji says, from the living room.

Izuku is impressed that he managed to put up with as much scrutiny and prodding from the paramedic as he did. The officers that have worked with him before look fascinated by how toned down Enji's temper has been, but Izuku knows Endeavor's mentality enough to know he would be stubborn about not instilling Shoto with habits that would be detrimental — like hesitating to call 911. No matter how much validation or praise anyone might give Shoto for calling, if Enji were to react badly, it would be unlikely Shoto would repeat the choice again in the future as easily as he did this time.

"Why are there so many of you?" Enji asks, not so much a question as a criticism. He’s clearly getting to his limit of what he can tolerate and just wants everyone to go away.

"The number two hero was down! We brought every available backup!"

"Well, I'm fine now, and I'm not pressing charges, so thank you for your help, and now scram!"

Izuku's chest loosens at that declaration. And as for the rest, he's unfazed by Enji’s complaints, disregards it as mere noise, booping Shoto’s nose to distract him from staring at his father. He sits across the table from Officer Ueno, who does glance weakly in Enji’s direction, but pushes through with his job. The man adjusts his glasses and holds a pen over his notepad, then directs his attention squarely at Shoto.

“You’re the one who contacted us. Can you tell me what happened?” he asks, in a tone pitched cheerful and light for talking to children.

Shoto nods at the question, his eyes wide and his body radiating the fact that he has a story to tell. "Mom told Dad he couldn't train me anymore. Dad said it was non-goshable and tried to take me to the training room anyway, but Mom iced his eyes and kicked him in the nuts!” An arm flings up at the last, conveying Shoto’s difficulty at containing that energy. “Mom says you call 911 when someone is hurt and Dad laid on the ground and looked hurt so I called 911 like Mom showed me.”

The officer stares at Shoto with his pen still poised.

“I think that’s the most amazing story I’ve ever heard,” a hero says, peering in from the archway, a look of appreciation on his face.

A "tch" comes from Enji, but nothing else. It probably took a lot to hold it back to that, considering how the man is being painted in front of a room full of his coworkers.

The blond officer clears his throat and turns his attention down to writing on his notepad. “Thank you, Shoto. I need to talk to your mom, now, okay? You can go with Officer Guede for now.”

A female officer with a bun at the back of her neck comes forward. She puts on a smile to coax a child and Shoto looks at her, a tinge of hesitance to leave his mom that may or may not be enough to make him try to decline. Izuku answers before Shoto can decide.

“That’s okay.” Izuku throws on a smile. I’m naive and have no idea what’s going on, I’m just a housewife with no clue of the laws. “It’s best if he stays with me.”

The officer’s face falls, sending a glance at her superior, backing off hesitantly. The three male officers behind her get closer.

Izuku has been waiting for them to make a move. He hadn’t missed the officer that melted into the crowd earlier, turning away discreetly on her phone, or the way the officers prefer to keep him and Shoto as far from Enji as possible without being obvious about it. There are at least twelve officers and heroes still loitering around their house like they have nothing else to do, but there's always something else to do; they're here for a reason. Someone like Rei wouldn’t have realized that, but Izuku had seen this kind of thing before when powerful parents were involved in a situation where kids had to be taken.

Enji, on the other hand, is getting more annoyed at what he seems to think is simply nosiness from gawkers. Considering himself too indispensable to deal with something like a domestic call, Enji has never crouched down and talked to a child at a crime scene, or waited around afterward to comfort them and find out what was going to happen to them. He does the job that only a hero can do and then moves on. It’s efficient, and doesn’t waste valuable resources, allowing him to maintain the highest case-solving rate in the country, but it means he’s inexperienced in what’s happening right now.

Then again, Izuku is acting naive, too. Enji is nothing, if not intelligent, and it wouldn’t be wise to bring up the subject of child protection first before the cops do.

“It’s policy to speak to you alone, so if we could go in the other room. It’s just for the interview--”

“I understand,” Izuku says, and the officers look relieved until he finishes, “and I’m saying no. I’m more comfortable staying right here. Go ahead and ask your questions.”

There’s a moment where he wonders what they’ll do, push more, or back off, as they look unsettled and unsure at each other, but then Ueno makes his decision and smiles.

“Tell me in your own words what happened, Mrs. Todoroki. How did you manage to outmaneuver Endeavor?” the officer asks, with a bit of a humorous smile, trying to build comfort and trust.

“I saw a weakness and exploited it,” Izuku says.

The officer waits for more, but Izuku doesn’t volunteer anything else.

He internally sympathizes with the falling expression on the officer’s face. Izuku always hated when people in situations of domestic violence got tight-lipped, but now here he is, doing it himself.

“Dad has a weakness?” a little voice asks at his collarbone.

Izuku looks at Shoto’s innocent face.

“Everyone has a weakness,” he says. Shoto needs to know this. Analysis is something kids don’t usually know about, but Izuku had started only a year or so older than Shoto is now, and Shoto is smart enough, and has a dangerous enough life with so much of a target on his back as a dual element wielding child and son of a top ranking hero, that it would be remiss to not teach him for self-defense purposes.

-ENJI-

The cops and heroes look like they have no idea what is going on, staring at Rei.

Enji still doesn’t know what the hell is going on with Rei, either, but watching the cops and heroes stare like startled fish at his wife, while she explains to their six year old son how to take down everyone in the room, is still satisfying. One of the officers is even taking notes, like he's at a lecture -- and well he should; some of this stuff, even Enji didn't know. Which makes him wonder even more, what has happened to make his wife like this suddenly. He's never heard of a quirk that could accomplish something like this.

“Don’t you think this is a bit of a violent subject for a child?” Ueno asks, interrupting finally, after Rei has made taking down half a dozen law enforcement without a quirk sound easy, her methods rather brutal, but simple enough for a child to understand, and more impressively, for a child to accomplish. They range from reaching up as if to take the adult's hand and then gripping the pinky and twirling himself to twist it and break the nerve circuit of a five-finger-touch dependent quirk, to imagining a glass and trying to shatter it when he screams in order to stall a man with an increased sensory quirk, to how to best break and grip the tea cup in front of him to make it the most effective weapon it can be and how to use it. Her plans take advantage of their weaknesses, though not one of them has actually told her their quirk. Apparently she can tell just by looking at them and matching their physical attributes to some database in her head.

Rei glances at Ueno, but her eyes go back to Shoto, focusing there, and doesn’t answer the cop -- like he’s irrelevant. That’s something that Enji has noticed, too, is that Rei treats the cops like their authority is secondary to her own.

Shoto isn’t paying attention to the cop, either, too distracted, frowning in thought, considering his mother’s words only, like she's the only thing that matters and everything else is backdrop -- mirroring the way Rei is treating him, her attitude rubbing off on him already. “That would be really mean, though,” Shoto says. “To make him not be able to use his quirk ever again.”

“Yes, it would be mean, if you have another option. What else could you do, then?”

Shoto thinks. “I could freeze him so he can’t move?” He looks at Rei to check if this is a good answer.

“He might even fall asleep if you do that, or even just cool the room enough. See his nose? It's just like a lizard called an Oeka, and they freeze solid and hibernate in the winter. But if you're going to try that, then first, you’d have to take care of Eraser, or you can’t do anything with your quirk. His quirk depends on line of sight, so you either need to make him look away for a second while you seal off that side of the room, or you can drop below the cover of the table.” Rei actually leans over and takes Shoto through the motions, taking his wrist and extending it to mimic using his quirk. “You want to fall at this angle and distance from the table, because it will hide you the longest from any movement he makes toward you. Use your quirk from the start, all the way down, because you’ll only have a second out of his sight and you don’t want to miss it.”

“What about the house? Won’t it be wrecked?” Shoto asks.

“When choosing to protect yourself or a building, you don’t choose the building, Shoto. If someone is trying to hurt you, you burn the whole thing down, if you have to. Dad won’t even be mad, I promise.”

Shoto’s gaze flicks to Enji, eyes round and not sure if that can be believed, to see what he will say to that. When Enji doesn’t counter the statement, while looking back at him and clearly having heard it, Shoto blinks, and turns back to Rei, looking still in shock.

“Your main weakness is quirk exhaustion, because your quirk is powerful enough to be your strength but you’re still little and haven’t stretched your limit too far yet. That’s why dad has you use your quirk until it’s uncomfortable. It’s not because he’s impatient — not just because he’s impatient —” Rei corrects herself, and Enji furrows his brow, indignant, “—but because the more you use it after it starts to hurt, the more powerful it will become.”

Shoto is silent and focused on Rei, thinking deeply on that.

“Uh, ma’am—”

“What’s Dad’s weakness?” Shoto asks, ignoring the police officers, his attention fixed on his mom.

-IZUKU-

“Oh, he’s got a whole slew of them—” Izuku stops, realizing now might not be the time to get into Enji's weaknesses, and glances at the faces around and realizes that you could hear a pin drop. Backs are straight and muscles are tense and all eyes are on him.

“Endeavor… a slew…?” That guy's brain seems to not be functioning in the making-sentences department.

“She seemed so small and nice when we first got here," someone Izuku can’t see whispers. They don’t seem keen on showing themselves.

Izuku knows that too much time is passing, that the pretenses are about to come to an end, and he’d rather be in the same room as Endeavor when it happens. He stands with Shoto and makes his way for the archway to the living room.

Everyone in the house would say they are here to help, and Izuku trusts Aizawa at the very least to try his best at it, but in reality, his only ally is the glaring man with watering eyes on the couch.

Because who else has the gall and stubbornness to stand between Shoto and the law? Izuku didn't come back in time just for Shoto to get dumped into foster care, and Enji might do a lot of things wrong, but Enji would never let anyone take Shoto without a fight.

The female officer, Guade, steps out into his path. “Ma’am. The report isn’t filled out yet. Let me take him for you. We can go color, or something, right, kiddo?” Her eyes shift to smile at Shoto.

Shoto eyes her, the boy looking caught between wanting to stay with his mom and not wanting to be rude or bad.

“Out of the way, please.” Izuku makes the request direct and does not phrase it as a question. His face is no longer feigning any sort of innocence or naivety and has settled into something firm and challenging.

“I...uh….” the woman stares at Izuku, taken off guard at the change, her hands still held out to Shoto. Izuku thinks maybe he sees the remembrance of his advice on how to take her down flit across her face.

“Listen, Mrs. Todoroki,” a cop behind him says, “we got a domestic violence call from a child. We can’t just leave him in the situation without due diligence and calling child protection. You’re going to have to give him to us.”

Shoto jolts at that. He spins from the officer to Izuku, fingers tightening in Izuku’s shirt. “They're taking me away? You said that they would help!” His voice gets high and breaks, and tears pour out of his eyes like they were just waiting on the precipice to come out.

“No, Shoto, they’re not going to take you away,” Izuku says, using the most soothing voice he can.

“Ma’am,” one of the officers says, reaching a hand out in supplication, clearly uncomfortable with lying to the child and setting him up only for the truth to prove a betrayal of his trust. “It’s just until we can verify his safety. Child protection will interview and—”

Izuku ignores him and squats down, setting Shoto on his feet and holding onto either side of his waist while he looks him in the eye. “You see, it’s not always fair,” he says, cutting off the officer’s words that are panicking his child, and getting Shoto’s eyes completely on him, “but the way the world works is that the strongest get their way. And Dad and I together are going to be the strongest here.”

“That’s not really how the law works.” The officer reaches for Shoto’s shoulder as if to coax him, and Shoto shrinks away.

Before the cop's fingers can make contact, Enji speaks up. “I will punch you so hard that you’ll taste your stomach,” he says, voice smooth and dangerous.

The officer snatches his hand away from Shoto and stumbles backward in his haste to retreat. Which sort of proves Izuku's point.

Shoto looks at the officer, and Izuku watches him realize that his father can repel them with his intimidating presence alone, without even getting off of the couch, and relief and awe permeate his expression.

“You see?” Izuku says, and runs a hand through Shoto’s hair and encourages him with a smile. “You’re perfectly safe with Dad and I here.”

-ENJI-

Enji lets his narrowed gaze linger on the man, watching him retreat and shake in his shoes for a moment — a perk of letting your temper actually cause damage every once in a while is that they don't accuse you of bluffing — before glancing at Shoto. He intends to take a quick check of how his son is taking this situation, and evaluate what kind of behaviour he can expect from his kid, but his gaze gets snagged on Shoto’s face.

Shoto’s mouth is parted and he’s staring at Enji like he's never seen him before — like he is something that Shoto has suddenly realized is vital.

Enji stares back, studying the look. The first thing that pings is that it’s nothing like any look he’s ever given Enji before.

Shoto’s gaze always has fear in it. Enji has never looked straight into his son’s eyes and not seen fear. Sometimes it’s accompanied by other things, like sadness, and tears, and even, on the rare occasion, hope or anger. But fear is a constant.

This look that Shoto has now. It’s like he just realized that Enji is good for something, like he has value.

Enji has been Shoto’s main protection since he was born. He’s protected him from the elements, from starvation, from being left to become weak and dependent on others. He's been on the front lines between Shoto's world and villains that would destroy it. But in Shoto’s mind, plain on his face, this is the first time that his father has stood between him and a threat.

Enji should be miffed, but instead his own world is somehow tilting on its axis, and he can’t look away from the stare that Shoto is giving him.

“You can’t just threaten a police officer!”

“Endeavor! Are you listening?”

Enji doesn’t answer, staring at Shoto.

Enji’s not an idiot. He knows that the feeling in his body at this moment is all manipulative biology to continue the survival of the species, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to keep that look on his son’s face, or from the endorphins wiping away half of the pain he’d been feeling a few seconds ago. It’s kind of like being high. No, it’s exactly like being high. He’s doped up on natural oxytocin, or some shit.

“Non-compliance with child protection protocols is grounds for arrest. We don’t want to make this an even bigger media disaster, but if we have to, we’ll bring in All Might.”

That name shatters the calm on Shoto’s face, and he whips back around to Rei. “Mom!” he says, panicked. He doesn’t have to say more than that to voice his fears. All Might is well known in this house as the one person that is stronger than Enji.

Enji’s teeth grind. Everytime, that idiot is there in his way, even in this. He opens his mouth, but Rei beats him to speaking.

"All Might’s not a boogie man, sweetie," Rei says, and pats Shoto's back in a rhythm like you would for a fussy baby. "He has weaknesses, like everybody else.”

The house screeches to a halt. There’s fifteen people in the room, and not one of them is making a peep, all staring at her. She doesn’t even seem to notice, gazing off into some thought in her head, her body and expression relaxed, completely tranquil, a smile appearing on her face.

-Izuku-

Izuku understands why they think bringing All Might in is a foolproof plan, but they're not the best analysts of weaknesses. Physically speaking, All Might could win in less than three seconds. Mentally and emotionally? All Might would hesitate to take a child from his mother's arms who didn't want to be taken, and as soon as Shoto started panicking and crying, All Might would start trying to backpedal and negotiate like his life depended on it.

Man, he would love to see Toshinori right now. Izuku's mind wanders, wondering if he could convince All Might to stay for dinner, and whether he has all of the ingredients on hand to make Toshi's favorite dessert...

He tugs his mind back to the present, because there's an urgent issue at hand: the kids will be arriving at the front gate from school, and the police will try to intercept them and take them away before they can get to their parents.

"Enji—" he starts, but is cut off by a cry from outside.

"Mom!"

Toya.

Wait. Why are they home early?

First Enji, now the kids, too?

No, the clock must be slow.

This wouldn't happen if he had a cell phone, dammit!

Chapter Text

-Aizawa-

"All Might’s not a boogie man, sweetie. He has weaknesses, like everybody else.”

Shota has already heard her ruminate about All Might losing a fight, so he’s not prepared for the comment, per se, but the rest of the room is blind-sided for the first time. Even Endeavor, who has presumably lived with the woman for years, has frozen with his mouth half open and is staring at her.

It’s a crazy thing to say and yet...she’s demonstrated that she can make rational and effective battle strategies, which makes him hesitate to dismiss her words out of hand, even though he can’t see how she could accomplish anything against All Might with their current surroundings. Fighting All Might with fire or ice would be a joke. The man can punch flames right out, and moves too fast, like passing a finger through a candle flame and not getting burned.

Impossible.

But Mrs. Todoroki seems unfazed by the threat of All Might. She's the kind of calm that you can see in her eyes, her body relaxed. It's only further evidenced when her lips draw up into a smile.

Shota gets a chill down his spine. You don’t talk about All Might having weaknesses and smile.

She comes out of her thoughts, smile dropping, and turns her head to Endeavor. “Enji—”

“Mom!”

Her attention jumps to the door, and little Shoto perks up and leans from his mother's arms in anticipation.

A small herd of footsteps pounds up to the door and white flames bloom, sending a wave of heat through the room.

Shota starts to activate his quirk on reflex, but then the red-haired boy from the Todoroki family photo bursts inside.

Toya.

The other two siblings are on Toya’s heels, and an officer stumbles in after, cursing, with a burnt sleeve and sweat on his face, clearly having failed in his job to detain them — but usually kids don't use their quirks on officers of the law just for asking them to come with them, and these kids have rare elemental quirks that can hurt people easily.

Apparently, defying authority runs in the family.

The nearest officers and heroes step in to cut off their path to their parents. Shoto makes a wounded sound at this, and his eyes fly over to his father, looking for intercession. Shota knows this is a bad button to hit for the kid, and his gut tenses in apprehension of seeing more sobbing.

Flames erupt from Toya again, and Shota’s relieved to see the officers scatter out of the children’s way.

Buchi's eyes shoot to Shota, holding a singed hand, brow furrowed. "Eraser!"

Shota looks at him with half lidded eyes, unsympathetic. "What?"

Buchi stares at him for a moment, then gives up.

Endeavor had leaned forward to rise to oppose the police, but settles back against the couch now that his children have gotten through, watchful over them.

The kids run to their mother. The boy with white hair is crying, mouth curved down in sadness, tears on his cheeks. “Mom! What’s happening?”

The girl, Fuyumi, just looks anxious, and her throat is tight, like she can’t talk.

Toya ignores everything else and runs his hands down Shoto's shoulders and checks him over. Shota’s stomach sinks and his tension grows at the insinuation of the reason he might do that so automatically. Toya overreacted everytime Shoto got a training injury, Endeavor said. How fucking often were these injuries that Toya checks Shoto over like it’s a tic of his as soon as he sees him and doesn’t even pay attention to a room full of police? That he automatically assumes Shoto is hurt when there’s a room full of police?

Shoto lets himself fall forward from the waist, Toya catching him and squeezing him to himself.

Unlike his parents, all reports and visible actions of Toya seem to be nothing but good for Shoto — and his arms are the only place so far that Shoto went from his mother without hesitation.

Toya could be an important ally. If they can get him to come willingly, then Shoto may come willingly as well.

-Shoto-

Shoto's heart lifts at Toya's voice. He can't wait to tell him that he's going to stay with him in the west wing now!

The police close like a monster's maw, though, swallowing up all sight of his siblings, and Shoto's tummy clenches up and that familiar pressure and sting in his eyes begins as the despair and fear cover all his previous emotions. He turns to his dad, hoping he'll stop them.

Dad's brow furrows and he starts to rise from the couch and Shoto's tummy releases in relief, seeing Dad will do something, but then Toya's fire surges, heating up the room and sending the police and heroes scattering away from the flames.

Toya runs to Shoto. His brother's hands on his shoulders and arms keep Shoto back for a moment, but once Toya's hands are out of the way, Shoto dives onto him.

Toya catches hold of him and hugs him tight.

-Toya-

There's tears on his little brother's face, but there are no more coming, now that Toya shook off the police that were trying to keep them separate. Shoto’s shoulders are straight, not hunched and tired, and his face looks healthy. There’s no winces when Toya runs his hands down Shoto’s arms, no complaints or fearful looks in their father’s direction, even though Dad’s right there on the couch. Shoto falls into Toya’s embrace, but he just looks happy to see Toya, not desperate for comfort.

Toya’s heart is still fluttering like a trapped thing, unable to stop as fast as his fear is placated, but a semi-calm settles over him from the relief. He’s only a little worried, now.

Arriving to a cop trying to block them from their parents had terrified his two siblings. Toya had been scared of being blocked from Shoto, scared that something had happened to him. Toya looks at his mom, waiting for her response.

“I’m sorry. I should have been at the gate to get you.” Mom squats down and pulls Natsuo into a hug, and Natsuo clings. “No one is separating you from us.” Natsuo sags into her at those words, reassured. Fuyumi lets out a breath like she’d been holding it all of this time.

Toya’s not so sure, though. Maybe Shoto should go with the police. What if Mom breaks down again? What if she can’t keep her promise to keep Shoto safe? The idea of being taken and separated from his mom and his siblings was terrifying last year, but since Dad divided them from Shoto, and Mom started closing herself off from them, being taken away is not as scary as the thought of going back to listening to all of the screams and crying through the door, or seeing Shoto pale and bruised for a couple of minutes a night and then having to let him go back to living with their parents, where no one takes care of him.

Toya blinks and tears are displaced, tickling in trails down his cheeks. Mom glances up at him and her eyes widen, her hand catching his wrist and encircling it.

“Toya.” A man’s voice from behind him. He turns to look over his shoulder and meets the gaze of a man in a black jumpsuit with a gray scarf that wraps around his shoulders an excessive amount of times. There's a flicker behind the man’s eyes when he sees that Toya is crying, but Toya doesn't bother to wipe his cheeks, his arms engaged in holding onto Shoto. “Do you want to help us get Shoto out of here?”

“Yes,” Toya says.

“No!” Shoto’s fingers clench in the shoulders of Toya’s school shirt, too close to his neck, and Shoto’s thin little child nails sting when one of them catches his skin in the motion. “Toya! I don’t want to go!”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Dad rises up from the couch, intimidating scowl on his face, and Toya clutches Shoto tighter to his chest and stumbles back a step. The cops look between him and his father with surprise on their faces and step forward between them, but seem afraid to get in the blast zone of his father.

Mom’s arm catches him around his back, hugging him and Shoto close to her, stopping him from going any further. “Sit down, Enji,” she says.

And Dad...does. He just...looks at them for a second longer, then sits as Mom tells him, the scowl on his face fading to merely a pensive watchfulness.

Toya blinks at his father. But even if Dad is acting like he has patience for once and there are cops surrounding them, Toya keeps a wary distance and an eye on him. There's no way Dad won't get mad and try to stop him the moment he takes a step for the door with Shoto, but the police and heroes are here and want to take Shoto, too, and he can use his own flames if he has to. He won't get a better chance than this. There'll be a fight, but he can get away with the police here helping.

Mom’s hand moves up to stroke through the back of his hair, and he turns his head to look at her. He turns his hand to take hers, the one that was holding his wrist.

“Mom, come with us.”

“As if I would let you go anywhere without me, Toya.” She tugs a bit of his hair lightly, and Toya’s tension eases, a smile losing the battle on his lips as more tears come. He wants to tug her and go, impatient to leave.

Natsuo’s head is craned back to look up at them, gaze flitting from him to Mom, and Fuyumi looks horrified at the subject, but Toya has no time to explain everything to his sister now. She’d probably still want to stay, even if he told her.

“I have my own preferred way for this to go, though, so let’s talk first, okay?” Mom says. “We’ll decide together, once you know all of the pertinent details.”

Decide? That makes him uneasy. Anything that threatens to ruin his escape with Shoto makes him uneasy, but she looks okay, more calm than he's ever seen her, and that's all that keeps him from making a run for it with Shoto.

“There’s no decision—” Dad says.

“Quiet, Enji.”

Dad glares at Mom, but doesn't keep speaking, which is more of a concession than Toya would have ever expected from his father. Toya doesn't even know how to act, except to stare and wait for something to happen.

“I’m going to do whatever makes the kids most comfortable,” Mom says, returning Dad’s glare with an expression of firmness. Toya can see in her face that nothing's going to change her mind. “I doubt foster care is going to be comfortable for them, so we’re going to give them the options that are best for them. They’re smart kids who can tell when something is good or bad, and safe or unsafe, once the details have been accurately explained to them. We have genius-angel children, don’t we?” she asks, like it’s a fact that wins the argument, something already established and well known.

And Dad just folds his arms and says, “Yes,” with a bit of a grump, but barely any reluctance. Like it really is something that he knows.

Some unfamiliar sensation filters through Toya's body as he blinks at his father. He feels like he's dreaming.

Dad thinks they’re genius angels?

-Enji-

Toya is staring at him, like he's surprised. Enji doesn't know why. Enji is sure that not a week passes that someone doesn't tell Toya how smart and good he is. His siblings and mother all rely on him, and his teachers praise him like they can't say enough about him. Enji tells him periodically during his training which pro heroes and well-known villains he could beat at his current knowledge level and which were just out of his reach to work towards; Toya knows that he's on a different level than other kids his age. So what's the shocked face for? Maybe he hadn't thought his siblings were recognized. Shoto may have been helpless not so long ago and he still cries a lot, but he's smart enough to absorb information like a sponge and apply it in a logical way, and he's gotten stronger.

Rei begins to push the children toward the kitchen, which takes Toya's eyes off of Enji.

"Get changed out of your uniforms and then I'll explain everything to you at the dinner table." She steers them toward the hallway that leads to the west wing apartment, leaving the police still witless in the wake of her bluff about All Might — because it's clearly a bluff. There's no way the bluff will work indefinitely, even on some of these idiots in the room, but he's not going to be the one to bring this strategic reprieve to an end.

Enji stands. "I'll get the key," he says, turning toward his office.

"No need." Rei holds up a hand to show as she forms an ice needle. She slides it into the key slot and maneuvers it. "Ah, it's one of those," she says, seemingly to herself, and there are a few clicks and clacks — and then she pushes open the door.

The kids give her looks of awe as they follow her into the apartment.

He shakes his head to clear it. No time to think about this right now. He needs to contact his lawyers to mitigate the damage in this debacle and make negotiations with child protection services before the police actually call All Might and the time she bought him to act to preserve their parental rights runs out.

"Can you show me how to do that?" he hears Natsuo say from out of sight.

Then Shoto's, "Me, too!"

Disappointingly, he doesn't hear her reply, as they go out of his hearing range for normal voice levels. He would really like to know that information. He hopes that she's smart enough to deny them.

-Aizawa-

“Go outside and cover the exits. Take all precautions,” Ueno says, and officers and heroes head out the front door to obey.

Shota stays where he is, tense. He listens, taking in everything he can hear, from Endeavor’s voice in the office talking to his lawyer, to the faint melodies of the children’s voices and water running from the apartment. When the sound of the children fades too far, he moves to the head of the hallway, straining his ears to keep track of them.

A female officer with dark hair and dark eyes pokes her head through the front door, a wary expression on her face. “The social worker called. She’s at the station and wants to know what the ETA is for getting the children to her.”

Ueno makes a miserable sound and rubs his face. Shota doesn’t envy him. This situation is sliding out of police control badly. Sure, they had All Might in the wings, but they’d been hoping that Endeavor would buckle under just the threat and cooperate without having to go further. They didn’t actually want to make an enemy out of their number two hero, or see the shitstorm that would happen if newspapers got a whiff of All Might taking his colleague’s kids by force. Holding hero parents down and taking their kids was not something they wanted in the fucking news. Especially not involving their top two heroes. It would be a national embarrassment and a huge shaking up for the public.

Endeavor had been going to buckle. Shota had seen it on his face. But then his wife had spoken, and that had thrown a wrench in the works.

And Toya wanted to come, and she didn’t forbid him, but she kept him from leaving all the same. But Toya was afraid of his father, that much had been obvious, and Shota didn’t want to put him in that position again, where his father’s anger was directed at him instead of at the police. He sighs. There’s nothing for it.

“Call All Might, Ueno,” he says.

One of the other officers glances between them. “Maybe we could pull back until tomorrow, pick them up at school or—"

Shota’s glare snaps to the man. “We’re not leaving without the kids.”

The man shuts his mouth.

The officer beside the man shifts, like he's uncomfortable, something on his chest he needs to say. “It’s a shame for this to be the way the kids meet the symbol of peace. I hate to imagine what the tabloids will say. This is going to follow those poor kids their whole lives. It must be tough to have a famous family, but they’ve kept the kids so sheltered from it before now. Such a shame for their privacy to be shattered like this, of all things.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. Endeavor is bringing this down on his own head. Call All Might.”

Ueno sighs and pulls out his phone. He swipes and taps and finally puts it to his ear. He waits a moment, then frowns and looks at the phone, then at them. “It’s busy,” he says. His brow is furrowed, looking bewildered, and offended. “We told him to keep his line clear and be on standby!”

“Hey, All Might!”

They all look over to where Mrs. Todoroki is coming back down the hall, Natsuo on her back, and a cordless phone in her hand, held to her ear. Toya comes after, holding Shoto’s hand, and Fuyumi follows them. They're all in casual clothing now, and there's a bit of wetness in a few places in their hair around their faces from washing up. Mrs. Todoroki is smiling, and not just a little. She's smiling like she's the sun.

“This is Endeavor’s wife, Rei!”

Chapter Text

-Izuku-

“Rei!” All Might says, his voice booming and happy. All Might doesn’t hesitate to use a first name that’s been given. If people like Enji and Kacchan are hissing cats, Toshinori is a big friendly dog who will make friends with anyone.

Izuku knows him well enough to recognize that he sounds relieved.

“You sound well! I'm so glad! I was worried when Ueno called me," All Might says.

Izuku glances at Toya and hesitates. He switches to English, so his children won’t understand what he’s saying. His oldest child is not ready to hear that his mother wants to keep him home, not without more context than he’s giving All Might at the moment. “Yeah, sorry to trouble you with the police, but we had to tell them no. I can’t accept my children being taken.”

Shoto is blinking up at him, having never heard his mom speak a bunch of sounds that he doesn’t recognize before. Izuku pats his head.

The number one hero accepts the change in language without comment and switches to English, as well. “Of course,” All Might says, his voice softer.

"Sorry to worry you,” Izuku says, hurrying to reassure him. He could list the statistics and problems with foster care until the hero hesitated about putting any kid in care again, but All Might’s heart is too soft for his own good, and Izuku doesn’t want to weigh him down. He already sacrifices every part of life in exchange for saving people; he doesn’t want to keep the hero up at night thinking about orphans. Because All Might definitely will. “Enji is on the phone sorting things out to satisfy the law and keep the children home with us. We're going to be fine. That’s actually not what I’m calling you about.”

“It’s...not?”

Izuku transitions back to Japanese, the sensitive part of the conversation over with. “I'm calling you about dinner."

"Oh.” There’s a beat. “Dinner?"

"Mhm! Have you eaten?"

-Aizawa-

“I’ve been meaning to make time to see Enji!” Shota hears All Might’s booming voice on Mrs. Todoroki’s phone from ten feet away. “I’d love to meet you all!”

“Did he just accept a dinner invitation right now?” Shota feels his hair lift off of his shoulders, and the officer next to him takes a step away to put distance between them.

“Calm down, Eraser,” Ueno says, but he sounds weary. “I’ll talk to All Might. This doesn’t change anything.”

Shota’s tension eases and his hair falls back to his shoulders. That’s right: The only thing more damaging than the media getting a whiff of the law taking Endeavor’s kids, would be the media getting a whiff of the law turning a blind eye to child protection protocols to cover for the number two hero. Whether the police believe the kids are in danger or not, the police can’t walk away.

That’s reassuring. Because he can tell that the police don’t see the Todoroki’s the way that Shota does, and he suspects they would choose to walk away if they could. They look at the Todoroki kids and see children that are doted on by and who adore their mother, a mother who can keep the number two in his place. But after last night, when Shota looks at the two-toned six year old, he sees the way he clings to his mom as being not because he loves his mom, but as a result of being isolated and deprived. It may seem cute that he wants his mom to carry him, but it’s a sign that he hasn’t been taken care of and is trying to cling to any safety and love that he’s being given in the moment. And then there’s his older brother’s tears. Toya fights police officers and has impressive control of a quirk that could kill, but he cries and asks his mom to leave with him and his little brother?

Yeah, no, there’s no way Shota is walking away from this. If All Might doesn’t follow protocol, Shota will erase his quirk and cinch his scarf around the man’s neck until he turns purple. See how the media likes that.

“We’re going to need a lot more rice!” Mrs. Todoroki spins and goes to the kitchen, and her children follow like ducklings. He can see their awe and shock at the fact that All Might is coming for dinner, but it’s just the wideness of their eyes that give it away, and they almost seem like their faces are set in place like the countenances of statues. Most kids would say something, ask questions, or flail their arms, but the Todoroki children behave quietly, like it’s the only way they know. Like they wouldn’t know how to flail or jump around even if someone told them to.

-Enji-

“Enji! Come help make dinner!” Rei calls, from somewhere outside of his office.

Help make dinner?

“I’m on the phone!” he says. He obviously has more important things to do right now — and always.

“Sorry!” she says, and she sounds like the old Rei, making him look toward his office door at the unexpected return of her timid personality. “My Bad! I forgot you can’t multitask!”

Enji glares in the direction of the kitchen; she’s trying to bait him.

“Sorry, I misspoke!” he says. “What I meant to say is, No!”

“—I’ve got Mioko on the phone to the station already and Jun is faxing the judge—” Bates, his lawyer, continues in his ear from the phone, used to Enji’s interruptions and temper, slipping his job into the spaces in between, because he knows that Enji can, in fact, multitask and pay attention to several things at once.

“Hello, Susan. I need to make a large money transfer to Yamaguchi Ryu,” he hears Rei say in a friendly, telephone voice, and he whips around, the spring in his chair squealing at the sudden movement. A money transfer to her father?

“Just do it; I’ll call you back,” he says, interrupting Bates, and hangs up, storming out to the kitchen.

He loses his steam and stops when he sees that she isn’t on the phone, but is only talking to the air. Both of her hands are busy stirring a pot and shaking salt into boiling rice. Fuyumi is making a salad and Toya is working with Natsuo to make a dressing, but Toya is distracted by Enji, his hands slowing as he stares over his shoulder at his father.

“I wasn’t sure you’d fall for that one," Rei says. "Like I’d ever send my father money, Enji, geez. Shoto wants to make the dessert. The recipe is there in his hand. Help him.”

Enji’s mouth presses and he feels pressure build up in his face, about to retort and let his anger out, but then he looks at Shoto. He’s standing on a step stool at the island counter with a bowl and a piece of handwritten paper, and he’s looking at Enji with round eyes, very still. That fear is back.

Enji doesn’t welcome it. He’d only gotten a small taste of his son looking to him for protection, but going back to the normal feels like more of a shift than two minutes of change should cause.

His anger doesn’t deflate, so much as change direction and pull some other unwanted feelings into the mix. He walks over. He towers over the six year old, even on his stool.

"Be nice, or regret it," Rei says, evenly. The words would suit a threat, but the tone sounds like honesty. He looks down at Shoto, and finds wide eyes staring up at him, his son still and waiting, making no move until his father says so.

He's still mad, but...he pats Shoto’s head, the boy's little head bobbing as he taps him with his palm. Shoto blinks up at him, less fear, more surprise.

He checks that off as a success column.

“It’s not hard to cook. You’ll do fine. Read the recipe to me.”

Shoto takes the paper in two hands and tilts his head down, focusing. He reads in a slow, childish rhythm.

“All Might’s...Favorite…”

What? His head whips to look at Rei, but it’s like she didn’t even hear Shoto say it, distracted with cooking and talking to Fuyumi about the salad.

Shoto is still reading. “Blueberry...Crumble...Pie.”

There’s a sudden gust of wind that ruffles everyone’s hair, and petals and leaves rush in the open door and scatter over the couch and floor. All Might is standing there, head up and shoulders back, with that grin on his face.

“I AM HERE!”

Rei lights up, then stops and glances at Enji. “Oh — Enji, I invited All Might for dinner,” she says, like she forgot to tell him.

Chapter Text

I read your comments and I'm glad this story is making you happy. I like making people happy💕

To be clear, I am not asking for story ideas for me to write. I have already written the next chapter and I already know most everything that is going to happen.

Just for fun, I'd like to see your version of a scene from the next chapter. If you want to, then post your writing in the comment section or as a gift fic to me, depending on the length. Only if that sounds like fun to you. Maybe it's just me that likes doing that sort of thing. It doesn't have to be part of my fic, just a similar theme of tags. Maybe tag it 'Deku goes back and fixes Shoto's childhood' or 'Rei insert' or 'Rei!Izuku' or 'Izuku in Rei's body/Todoroki Enji | Endeavor' or all of the above so we can get those tags official someday? Just a thought. I have chapter 17 completed and saved as a draft. I'll post it soon.

☺️

Edit: Even after I post the next chapter, feel free to write your own version of mine or continue it, or simply a story using the tags above. There is an audience for 'Izurei' or 'Reizu' not sure which to call it

Chapter Text

-Toya-

Mom invited All Might.

All Might is coming. Where Dad is. And they have to be here, too.

He doesn't know how to act in a situation like this. He likes All Might, and the hero doesn't deserve whatever Dad is going to say to him, so Toya feels bad already and he doesn't want to be here.

"Enji! Come help make dinner!"

Toya stiffens and turns his head to look at her, feeling attacked from an unexpected source. They'd just gotten rid of Dad from the room!

She turns her head and meets his eyes, and after seeing his face, there's a flicker of regret and a troubled look in hers, and then her expression softens and she smiles and winks at him.

It'll be fine, she seems to be conveying, and she even makes a peace sign over her cheek.

Toya is too taken off guard to respond.

Unlike Mom, Dad replies like his usual self, and Toya is glad he's not coming out after all, but for some reason, Mom is determined. She goads him and when that doesn't work she tricks him, which means he comes out angry. And then she sets him on Shoto like that, and that's not okay. Toya turns and watches, his guard up and ready to step in to protect his little brother. Dad is angry and Shoto is scared and Toya is going to do something, clenching his hand on the glass bottle of oil he has in it.

"Be nice, or regret it," Mom says, all casual and simple, as if there's not too much to be concerned about.

Toya glances at her, then watches Dad's face struggle for a moment, and then Dad pats Shoto's head. It's a bit rough and Shoto's neck doesn't need to be bopped down like that, but Toya holds back from saying anything because Shoto stops being scared. Dad tells him he'll do fine and is actually helping Shoto make the dessert.

He wonders what the hell kind of blackmail Mom's got on Dad. And why she isn't using it to get them out of here instead of wasting it on making Dad pretend to like spending time with his kids.

I have my own preferred way for things to go. How did she want things to go?

Was she trying to make Dad look better in front of the police? Was she trying to make them stay?

His chest constricts and it takes effort to keep his breathing normal, to not make Natsuo or Fuyumi notice he's scared and upset.

She told them she'd explain at dinner, and didn't even mention it in the washroom, asking inane questions like how school went and talking to Fuyumi and Natsuo like it was a normal day — it was weird, since there was a boatload of police in their living room and it clearly wasn't a normal day. Fuyumi and Natsuo didn't seem to mind. Shoto had hung onto Toya and went on excitedly about all the things he'd seen and done in their apartment and how he was going to get to come to the apartment now. As if Dad was going to just let him. It scared Toya to think about how that would go, knowing that Shoto would end up crying and devastated in the end. It has him on edge, and if nothing else, that excitement from Shoto is enough to make him choose to take Shoto to the police, just to avoid seeing Shoto breaking down when Dad isolated him again.

But Mom has gone crazy. That's what Toya realizes when he hears Shoto read out the dessert title. He doesn't get a chance to do more than glance over and see his father's face; before Shoto can even read out the first ingredient of the dessert, the fastest hero in the world is here. He comes with a gust of wind and his signature smile and he's just as big in person as he is on TV.

“I AM HERE!”

"Oh, Enji — I invited All Might for dinner," Mom says.

Dad stares and struggles, like he has a lot to say and doesn't know what to say first. If Toya were less worried, he might have laughed, but he's stiff.

Toya's heart is thudding.

"All Might — a word," the blond officer in charge says, and heads for the front door, the hero wrapped in the scarf following him. It almost sounds like All Might is in trouble, but that can't be right... Right?

-Izuku-

Izuku loves All Might with a depth that will never diminish, but seems to only increase. And ever since he met the man, he couldn't help worrying about him as a sick loved one with an expiration date — because longer than the world's been aware, he's known that All Might coughs blood, and is frail. So, he can't deny there's some vibrations of excitement going through him at the thought of meeting a much younger All Might.

He loves that Toshinori is coming over for dinner. Izuku is floating and nothing can bring him down. Besides seeing healthy All Might, he can't wait to show All Might his kids, and show his kids All Might. He can't wait to have the people he loves so much in the same room together. He's proud of his kids and proud of his mentor, and he wants to spend time with them all together.

There's a slight hiccup in his perfect evening plans in his head; he wants dinner to be good, and there's no time for Izuku to make the dessert. There's someone that can make it perfectly and efficiently, though, if only Izuku can get him to do it. Enji's competitiveness and OCD personality apply to the kitchen quite well and can be counted on to follow a recipe. "Enji! Come help make dinner!"

It takes some ingenuity, but he finally gets Enji stomping out to the kitchen, and it's downhill easy from there. He looks intimidating — okay, he is intimidating — but while Enji thinks his way is the best way and doesn't know how to not scare the kids without leaving the room, Izuku can see something in his eyes when he looks at the kids that the kids don't seem to notice. In his own way, Enji does try, and if he had an opening and saw the opportunity instead of being blind, Izuku thinks he would take it. Izuku turns to his own cooking and ignores Enji, so Enji won't feel supervised — he knows Enji hates the feeling of being expected to fail — and helps Fuyumi choose ingredients for the salad. He pretends not to notice when Shoto says All Might's name in the recipe title, but he can imagine the man's eyes burning into the back of his head.

All Might appears in a whoosh of air, bringing Izuku's attention to the living room.

All Might's smile is sweeter, his eyes have no visible crows feet and the whites are clear and not overshadowed, and even though he's muscular, Izuku can see the healthy glow and thin layer of fat under his skin, and he wants to cry.

It's like Christmas and his birthday in one.

"I AM HERE!!"

Izuku beams, his heart swelling.

He catches Enji's shocked face from the corner of his eye and glances at the man, realizing he must not have heard him on the phone. "Oh, Enji — I invited All Might for dinner," he says, filling him in, so he won't worry that All Might is here to take the kids.

He returns his eyes to All Might, but Ueno is already calling the number one hero away outside to talk.

"I'll be right back!" All Might says, and then he’s gone again.

Izuku's legs want to follow, but he holds back. He has dinner to finish, anyway, and he's sure they won't be long. As he turns, he sees Enji looking at him, and he pauses, returning the man's gaze.

"Why," Enji says. It's barely a question, more of an accusation.

"Because I wanted to. I love him. He's an amazing hero, and I want the children to meet him."

Enji's brows come together and rise, and his mouth is parted. He looks flabbergasted.

Izuku turns to finish the rice and check the other things he's made.

Oh, the children are staring at him, too.

Izuku kisses all of their cute, wide-eyed faces, and smiles. "Keep cooking, we don't have much time."

He turns to the gathering in their living room. "You're all welcome to eat with us."

The officers startle at being addressed, used to being ignored by now. Izuku'd had to do that, for Shoto's sake. Children take cues on how to feel about things from their parents, so he'd had to act as if the police were a non-issue, so Shoto wouldn't be frightened. Now, he'll invite them and be friendly, so that Shoto knows they are allies, not enemies.

The children come to attention at the invitation, looking between their mother and the officers.

Fuyumi clutches her hands together, fingers discreetly twisting together. "Um, can I make some tea for you all?" she offers, clicking over to host mode the second that her mother declares the invite.

"I can get extra cushions from the west wing apartment," Toya says.

"I'll help!" Natsuo says.

The nearest officer takes off his hat, looking at them with a smile. "You're very courteous children, all of you."

"Yes," Izuku says, caressing Fuyumi's head and squeezing Toya's shoulder. "They get their courteousness from their father,” — everyone looks at him weird, including the kids and Enji — “as I'm sure you could tell, since all his courteousness is gone, and I've still got mine."

One of the officers coughs, turning away and covering his mouth. "Excuse me," he says, his voice croaking and his face red from the sudden exertion of trying to quash his laughter.

Enji is glaring at Izuku more severely than he would have expected from the joke. In Izuku's time, Enji didn’t usually care if people insulted him. Maybe he got his thicker skin between then and now?

Izuku's attention goes to Shoto, though, because he is looking up at Izuku, eyes wide.

"How do we give it back?" Shoto asks.

Izuku leans down and pulls Shoto into a hug. "I'm joking, Shoto. You can't give someone courteousness. They have to produce it themselves."

"Oh." He deflates, like he'd been shown a glimpse of a better world, but it crumbled before his eyes.

Izuku cups his head and pats his back. "It's alright. Dad has other things he's good at."

Shoto looks up at him. "Like what?" he asks, sadly.

A cough-laugh blurts out of someone who tries to hide it quickly.

"Buchi," Enji says.

"Shutting up," Buchi says.

-Enji-

He can’t wait for all of these annoying people to get out of his house and stop with their nosy stares and the snide comments.

The hair-brained, number one idiot came to dinner in the middle of a police call, and now they're taking him aside to set him straight and then send him in to remove Enji's kids. As much as Enji has tried to be, he's not strong enough to forcibly kick All Might's ass out of his house, and his lawyer hasn’t called him with news of success yet, which means he's dependent on Rei to take care of this situation.

After how she ran to him with Shoto for protection from the police earlier, Enji is convinced that Rei won't give up the kids willingly, and that she probably has a plan, as she had demonstrated a newfound propensity for, but that doesn't mean he has to like the way she fawns and exclaims over All Might. Enji is tense, knowing that he could ruin her plan if he does anything at all, because he has no idea what the plan even is, although it looks a lot like ‘suck up.’ If that's her plan, then she's on her own.

So, he fiercely makes pie. He listens to Shoto read the recipe and thus is doomed to forever know how to make All Might's favorite dessert, and then he traces the kitchen in as few steps as possible, gathering everything from the list in the order that he comes across it on his loop around the cupboards and drawers, piling his large arm up until he has every single item. He returns to the island counter to deliver it in a pile, a measuring cup tossing free and rolling around in a circle and clattering to a stop on the countertop. Shoto looks at the assortment in wide-eyed wonder as the stack is plopped in front of him, like he’s inspecting a pile of pilfered treasure. He also flicks his gaze toward the door, where All Might went, with an awed and anticipatory expression. It’s normal for kids to like All Might, and it can’t be helped that Shoto is a child, but it still irritates Enji, because it's All Might.

Enji takes a few seconds to line everything up according to the order of the recipe. He then begins scooping and then scraping the tops of the appropriate cups and spoons flat and dumping them in the bowl in succession, like a machine.

"I can see why you wanted his help in the kitchen."

Enji sends an oblique glare the man's way without turning his head and continues working, ignoring them all as they stare like they didn't think he could handle a two bit task like cooking.

-All Might-

All Might has a brief moment to take in the sight of the family of six — working in the kitchen together like they’re prepping for a family holiday, his scowly colleague helping his littlest son cook something — and be both warmed in his heart, and take a hit of loneliness, envious of Enji for accomplishing this miraculous thing alongside a top hero career. Then Mrs. Todoroki turns around and beams at him with a face so full of welcome and affection that All Might, who is praised by strangers on the street regularly, actually feels it like a gentle slap on the forehead instead of being ‘used to it.’ It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate his fans, but he’s become acclimatized somewhat to smiling faces and exclamations of his name. But he hasn’t seen a face this bright and reassuring since the last time he saw himself on TV, and he practiced a lot to be that way.

“All Might,” the officer in charge says, in a much less welcoming tone, before All Might has finished taking his first step towards the family. He looks over at Officer Ueno. “A word,” Ueno says, and tips his head toward the door. Ueno turns to go outside, accompanied by Eraser Head and looking like Important Business, leaving All Might to follow with a sudden pit of apprehension in his stomach.

"I'll be right back!" he says, to Rei.

*

They stand out on the grass twenty feet from the Todoroki home.

Ueno looks as serious as a funeral, and Eraser is cold vengeance in human form, like he could kill someone and feel no remorse. Toshinori’s stomach plummets, his cheer evaporating. Things have not turned out well, after all.

He’d been dreading this task ever since Ueno called him to ask him to be on standby. He’d been so relieved to get such a cheery call from Rei Todoroki, assuming from her bright and happy voice and invitation to dinner that everything had turned out okay. This reception waiting for him at the Todoroki estate is a cold bucket of water in the face and his stomach is a knot again.

“There must be something else we can do…”

“This is Child Protection’s job. Making judgement calls on this is not our jurisdiction," Ueno says.

“I’m sure my power is overkill. Endeavor is a reasonable man—”

“You don’t know him at all, do you,” Eraser says, tone as flat as his stare.

“His wife — she just told me on the phone that they’re working to settle things with the law, and she’s a very nice woman, I'm sure if—”

“Okay, stop talking," Eraser says, like All Might's words are wildly inappropriate.

All Might closes his mouth. He stands under the gazes of Ueno and Eraser, feeling weighed down and like his lunch is somewhere between his throat and his stomach, a lump that could come up if pressured anymore. He wasn’t meant for this kind of job. He wasn’t just a government employee that fought crime; he was a hero. Whenever he got involved in cases where child protection was called, the children usually ran to him, and the parents were clearly villains, raging and destroying things. Nothing like this situation, where a fellow hero had a domestic incident — got kicked in the balls by his wife during an argument — though he probably deserved it if that bright, kind looking woman in there kicked him — and then had police tell him they had to take his kids because of it. Of course, Endeavor resisted letting his children go. What kind of parent would he be, if he didn’t?

He wishes he could do something to help, instead of being the guy that squashes a father's resistance in front of his children with overwhelming physical force.

Will Endeavor and his wife ever forgive him for this? Will the children?

Oh, this is the worst. Toshinori isn’t cut out to be the bad guy. He doesn’t have the constitution for it.

"They shouldn't have been fighting in front of their kid," Eraser says. "It's their own fault that this is happening."

Toshinori frowns, or maybe it's more like a pout. He doesn’t know how Eraser can be so callous. He hates to think of the Todoroki’s having marital problems, or about forcing little children from their parents and making them go into the care of strangers.

But he can’t refuse the law and he doesn't have any way to help them fix their family troubles, especially since he doesn't even know what they are, so he heads toward the house with a heavy heart and heavy steps, refusing to use One For All to speed him to the awful task.

He looks over his shoulder at the cop and underground hero following him. “The children aren’t in danger now. Even the parents don't look upset and are working together. Why can't we just wait and—”

“Do you know anything about the Todoroki’s home life?” Eraser cuts him off.

He knew they cooked together and that their mother had a kind and confident smile that reminded him of Nana. In Eraser Head's estimation, that probably didn't count for much. “Well, no, but...”

“Do you want to leave children in a home with parents who fight physically with each other?”

“Of course not—”

“Good. But it doesn't matter, because this is not your decision,” Eraser says, and his voice is compassionless, no pity for the Todorokis’ plight. “The law is clear on what is to happen here. Your job is to get the children and hand them over to the police. Do your job.”

-Aizawa-

Shota watches All Might take a breath and the hero’s eyes change, the other hero steeling his spine and his resolve, coming around to the fact that this needs to be done. Shota is relieved to see the number one hero get with the program. He’s the most dependable hero in the world, so Shota should give him some credit, he supposes. He pointed out some sobering things, and All Might couldn’t deny them, and so this is clearly the correct course of action. All Might is smart enough to understand that.

"I am here, again," All Might says, as is his signature, but much weaker, no happiness or cheer in it.

Mrs. Todoroki has Shoto in her arms as she turns to his voice. “All Might!”

All Might’s somber tone doesn’t seem to discourage her at all. She smiles and thrusts Shoto right at the man, putting their noses less than a foot apart, Shoto wide-eyed, hanging from his mother's hands by his armpits.

She's handing him right over. Shota takes a step forward, on pins for the moment to take the child from All Might.

“Mom can’t hug All Might politely because of the big-people rules. Will you hug him for me?”

Shoto stares at All Might's face from inches away, shoulders curling up toward his ears, shy. Shoto finally extends his arms out. All Might takes him, transferring him to his chest delicately, like the child is only taped together and his limbs might fall off if All Might jars him too much. The little boy lays his head under All Might's chin and wraps his arms around the man's neck.

Above the boy's head, looking down at his two-toned hair, the hero's mouth presses and his eyes are guilty.

"Dad and I are making your favorite pie," Shoto says, in a small, shy voice.

All Might’s spine of steel collapses in front of Shota's eyes.

-Tsukauchi-

“Tsukauchi!”

Naomasa startles and catches the papers that he almost dropped. “Uh, yes, sir?” he says.

“All Might is asking for you. I sent him your contact info. You should be getting a message with an address. He didn’t want to tell me — confidential, or something.” His boss is eyeing him speculatively, and a little suspiciously. Naomasa can’t blame him. He’s as confused as the other man. He’s only been on the job for six months, still a rookie. He’d been lucky enough to be at a scene where All Might appeared, and got to meet him, but he’d barely said five sentences to the hero.

His phone chimes, letting him know he's gotten a message.

Chapter Text

-All Might-

"All Might. Give him to me."

Toshinori and the child turn their heads to look at Eraser.

Eraser's face is serious, his hands out expectantly to receive Shoto. The boy's face falls, and the little fingers at the back of Toshinori’s neck grip onto him.

Eraser can’t expect him to hand Shoto over while the child is scared to go?

There’s a crack sound — the wooden spoon in Enji’s hand is suddenly bent at an angle and a few officers glance Endeavor's way nervously — Eraser is still glaring Toshinori down and looks unwilling to hear arguments—

Toshinori turns slightly to the side, hiding the child a bit and putting him out of Eraser’s reach. “Uh, Eraser, your face looks a bit scary…” he starts. “Have you worked much with children?” he asks.

Eraser’s mouth presses. Then his shoulders consciously lower and he turns his gaze to Shoto. “I’m sorry, if I frightened you. I won’t hurt you; I’m a hero. I need to take you to the station for a bit while we sort out this case with your parents. Will you come with me?”

Shoto shakes his head and his arms tighten on Toshinori.

Toshinori clears his throat, and puts on his diplomatic voice. “Have some patience, Eraser. This is a delicate matter.”

“We talked about this. Have you already forgotten what your job is here?”

“Once we verify that the children need to be removed, then I promise I’ll remove them," Toshinori says.

His arms fill with heat. All Might turns, startled, to the child, and holds him at arms length by his one cool arm and leg to avoid the heat suddenly radiating from half of him.

"If you try to take me, my mom will beat you up!"

Shoto is glaring at him, not Eraser, and All Might blinks at the child. He's never heard anything like that directed at himself before. No child thinks their mom is stronger than All Might.

He laughs in delight. How adorable!

The child scowls harder and flames pop up from his cheek and shoulder.

"I'm sorry!" All Might says, wiping the smile from his face. The boy really inherited his father's scowl! He went from cherub to demon in half a second flat! "I'm not going to try to take you, unless you’re in danger. I promise." He looks at the boy’s parents helplessly.

Endeavor looks smug, smirking. Rei puts a hand over her mouth to hide a laugh, and Endeavor’s smile drops as he turns his head to look at his wife and stares at her for a moment. She reaches for the boy and Shoto immediately turns and slides out of All Might's hold and into his mom’s arms, leaving Toshinori behind.

“Don’t scare All Might, Shoto,” she says. “You’re going to make him think you don’t like him.”

Shoto’s face falls and he actually looks contrite, looking back over his shoulder with his head down like a shamed puppy.

“It’s quite alright.” All Might waves his hands.

A shine of red glows behind him, and for a second he thinks Eraser is using his quirk on him, but when he looks back, Eraser’s eyes are dark brown.

-Aizawa-

What does All Might think he's doing, making promises like that to the kid after their talk outside? It's already been established that the children are at risk. They can't be left here without an investigation and the parents being cleared by child protection!

He looks over at Toya. The boy is confused and worried, and losing hope that the police are going to do anything. His mother is smiling as if everything is right in her world, and that's a blatant betrayal to the kid. Toya is obviously not okay. She needs to recognize that and act accordingly.

Is this a sign of her being as two-faced as Endeavor said she was?

But despite their differences, Enji is on her side right now. Neither of them want to lose the kids.

He asked the boy if he wanted to help them get Shoto out of here, and as far as he’s concerned, that was a promise to the kid, that he’s going to get them out.

-Enji-

Enji enjoys seeing Shoto flare his temper at All Might. Shoto used to be more like his mother, but he’s becoming less timid. The way All Might backtracks from Shoto is satisfying. The fact that All Might is the number one hero is frankly embarrassing for the country.

He feels a moment of concern after the flames, glancing at Rei to see her reaction, but her new personality holds, not a flinch or a trace of tension at Shoto’s display. She laughs and takes Shoto affectionately, kissing Shoto’s left cheek and showing no issue with seeing their son flare his fire.

She’s really not afraid of me anymore.

His thoughts are interrupted by the peanut gallery standing by his counter.

"Do you make All Might's Favorite a lot?" an officer asks, staring at his quick progress.

His brows lower flat over his eyes and he doesn't dignify that idiotic question with an answer. He drops the broken wooden spoon into the trash next to him. "If Shoto wants to help, then he should come over here now. I'm almost done."

Shoto wiggles out of Rei’s arms and hurries over like he's late. Enji feels better to have him in his space, within his arm's reach and away from All Might and Eraser. Shoto gets up on the stool and Enji gives him the pastry cutter. "I'll pour the liquid in, and you mash it up so that it looks like a bowl of white peas. Don't mush it or make the peas too small — stop before then."

Shoto begins mashing, and Enji's lips purse when he hits the same spot too many times.

If the pie is ruined, and his time doing this goes to waste, Enji will be annoyed, but the purpose of this whole exercise was to let Shoto make pie, so he can't just take the pastry cutter away and tell him no, or this task is a failure, and Enji doesn't like failure, unless it's his enemy's failure.

Enji doesn't see any other way to do it; he wraps his hand around Shoto's and starts moving him. "Like this," he says. Shoto looks up at him and then back down at the bowl. Rei said to help him make it, and this is him helping Shoto make it, so Enji doesn't bother taking his hand away and continues all the way until it's perfect.

He wraps two rubber bands around each end of the rolling pin to keep the thickness of the dough under it even and lets Shoto have at it. Shoto's arm strength has improved a lot during his training, and he mushes the dough out pretty effectively, even if he doesn't always roll the pin so much as push it, smearing the dough out. It'll look and taste the same once it's cooked, so Enji doesn't care. Enji breaks a small piece off of the dough and tests the taste and texture in his mouth, then leans over and spits it in the trash on top of the wooden spoon.

“Is it that bad?” the officer asks.

Shoto has paused and is looking up at Enji, worried.

“I don’t eat that crap,” Enji says. “And it’s perfect.”

Shoto smiles, his energy perking up, happy like he accomplished something.

Its perfection has nothing to do with you.

But the inside of his chest does a strange thing, seeing Shoto beam up at him like that, and he ends up staring at his kid again.

-Tsukauchi-

Tsukauchi checks the address to be sure, but it’s obvious that he’s at the right place by the — two, four, six — eight cop cars parked out front. He gets out of his car on the street and walks to the house. The guard sees his uniform and opens the gate with a nod.

Tsukauchi nods back and walks by. He takes out his phone to read All Might’s message again. A colleague of mine and his wife had a fight. Child Protection was called and an interview needs to be conducted to verify the fitness of the home for their children. Could you please use your quirk to expedite the process? I’ll owe you one!

The idea that All Might could ever owe anyone after all he does for their country is ridiculous. Tsukauchi will help the hero in whatever way he can.

He crosses the large front yard of the traditional Japanese mansion, heading to where four officers are standing outside the front door.

“Of course, Endeavor couldn’t just marry someone normal,” one of them says, in an 'it figures' tone.

“I’ve never seen him look so cowed,” another inputs. “Did you see how meek he was during the medical exam with her watching?”

Tsukauchi stumbles and his brows rise. This is Endeavor’s house?

“He did talk back to her about cooking, though.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out. He talked back to her about training their kid, too, and got sacked in the nuts. His kid thought he needed 911!”

Tsukauchi blinks and looks between the officers, his eyes moving from one to another as they speak, the group taking no notice of him, preoccupied with their discussion.

There’s only one Endeavor, right?

“The number two hero is not good enough to train her son. Wew. I have to admit, her own training is impressive. Who do you think taught her?”

“Is this the Todoroki residence?” Tsukauchi asks.

One of the officers finally notices him, eyes landing on him, and Tsukauchi lets his brows fall, shutting his mouth and straightening.

“I’m Officer Tsukauchi. All Might requested my presence.”

The closest officer nods his head toward the door. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Right.” Tsukauchi heads for the door, then pauses. “Uh. Before I go in — what is the wife’s quirk?”

“Close range combat—”

“Mind-reading—”

“Detecting weaknesses—”

“Scary—!”

Tsukauchi blinks as they all answer at once.

They’re all being honest.

“It’s ice, you dummies,” another officer says, as he’s walking over. “That’s how she attacked his eyes.”

“Oh. Right. That’s a flashy quirk, but nothing I would have guessed from meeting her.”

Attacked his eyes?

“You better get in there,” the new officer says. “You never know what could happen. This is kind of a 'situation'.”

“Right.” Tsukauchi heeds the advice and makes haste to the door.

Chapter Text

-Izuku-

He strokes his fingers through Natsuo’s hair and kisses Shoto’s cheek. The three younger children are comforted by his attention and reassurances, but the more he acts like nothing is wrong—

He tries to catch his oldest son’s eye, but Toya looks right past Izuku, to Eraser, like Eraserhead is his only hope in this situation, Toya sending the hero vulnerable and anxious glances.

Mere days ago, Izuku would step onto a scene and everyone’s shoulders would drop in relief, just his presence enough to change night to day. If he had even the reputation of Deku's pinky finger right now, Toya wouldn’t be anxious, or looking to Eraser with that heartbreaking expression — it's frustrating, when his child needs reassurance, making Izuku feel every inch of the fall from being the ultimate figure of safety, a symbol of peace, All Might’s successor, to —

Rei. Izuku can’t think of anything that could come from Rei that would be comforting to Toya. He sees his mother as someone who needs protection, not someone who can protect him, and he doesn’t trust any word of comfort that comes from her in front of other people, because he knows that she puts up a facade for reputation’s sake.

Toya does see hope in one person. One person has managed to make an impression on him and convince him that he’s been seen and has someone who wants to help. Izuku wants to do whatever will give Toya even a little reassurance. If Toya thinks Aizawa is a source of support and even a little bit of safety—

“Aizawa, are you interested in a live-in position?”

Eraser’s eyes go even flatter. Hostile, really. “You can’t bribe me.”

At the same time, Enji jerks. “He’s the biggest proponent for taking away our kids!” he says. “He’s fired!”

He ignores Enji, unwilling to accept any obstacle to getting Toya the reassuring presence that his son has chosen to trust in. “We recently had a position open for a tutor for Shoto,” Izuku says, and sees something flicker behind Aizawa’s eyes that is part surprise and confusion, and part just more hostility.

“No,” Enji says, before Eraser can speak again, his firm tone indicating that he’s putting his foot down. “Yorik is coming back.”

Shoto stiffens and turns to look up at Izuku anxiously, and Izuku turns his attention to comforting him. “No, he’s not,” he says, wrinkling his nose, as if that idea is worth nothing more than to make a face at the silliness. “If Mr. Yorik comes on our property again, Mom will make him pee his pants.”

Shoto relaxes, a small smile gracing his mouth.

“Please, Mrs. Todoroki,” Ueno says, as if he wants to give up and go home, “we haven’t finished dealing with your first assault yet.”

Toya’s body tightens in alarm, eyes dismayed. “First assault?”

“At least wait until we leave,” Ueno mutters.

-Toya-

Are they stupid? The police want to separate them from Mom? The only way she could hurt Dad is…there is no way. Maybe if he was unconscious, and even then it’s unbelievable that she’d have the guts.

Dad is saying he won’t press charges, but that will change if they try to leave.

“If you ever go anywhere with your mother without my permission, I’ll make her sorry, I promise you.”

He looks down at his little brother and pain goes through him.

He wants to protect Shoto…

But can he really sacrifice Mom? What would Shoto do, if she was taken away from them?

Shoto would never get over it.

-Izuku-

Seeing the look on Toya’s face when Shoto tells him that 'Mom won a fight against Dad', Izuku’s stomach sinks. Shoto doesn’t understand that any violence between their parents is terrifying to Toya, and that he would never believe their mother ‘won’, no matter what Shoto said.

“And Dad called the police,” Toya says, eyes glazed and body weak.

“I called them!” Shoto says.

Toya’s face goes slack with shock, as if too stunned to make any expression at all. “You called the police on Mom?”

“No!” Shoto says, hands balling at his chest, rearing up, anxious to deny, but then his eyes widen with realization. Shock and dread fill his little face and he spins to Izuku. “Mom!” he says, his face scrunching and eyes getting full with tears, his open, energetic body language transforming to tightness and desperation. “Did I call the police on you?” He looks up at Izuku with devastated eyes, like he already knows it must be true.

Izuku scoops him up and envelopes him in his arms. “Of course, not.” He squeezes him and kisses his head. “I’m glad you called the police. That was very smart of you.”

Shoto sniffs up his tears and softens into Izuku’s hold, putting his face in Izuku’s neck.

-Toya-

His gut turns with guilt and dread. He’s so stupid. He spoke without thinking, the words just popping out of his mouth. Now, if the police take Mom away, Shoto will think it’s his fault. He crowds in to put a hand on Shoto’s back and sandwich him from the opposite side from Mom. “I didn’t mean that. I know you wouldn’t. That’s why I was surprised, when it sounded like you did. I’m sorry.” His throat closes a bit.

Shoto turns from Mom and goes into his arms, like he knows that holding him will make Toya feel better. Toya keeps him tightly with both arms around him.

“I don’t want to leave anymore. I want to stay. I’m sorry for saying I wanted to leave.”

The hero in the scarf startles and looks at him, and Toya turns his eyes away, feeling ashamed for lying when the hero wants to help him and saw through him, but he can’t leave, now. He’s no longer on the same side as the hero.

-Izuku-

Izuku brushes Toya’s bangs back to see his face. He looks truly regretful and guilty.

“I’m pretty good at pretending, but you can tell, right? That I’m fine?” Izuku asks.

Toya’s eyes open from their scrunch and look at him, startled by the statement. He studies Izuku’s face and Izuku can see in his expression that he does indeed see that his mother is lacking the stress that she would usually have.

“I kept my promise, and I’m still keeping it. Shoto is fine, right?”

Toya looks down at Shoto, and Shoto tilts his head up and looks at him at hearing his name and seeing his brother looking down at him, and Toya absorbs his little brother’s state and then raises his eyes and nods at Izuku. He’d been too worried about what was wrong to concentrate on what wasn’t wrong.

“Nothing bad has happened yet.” Izuku pats him on the head. “They might seem bad, but they’re all good.”

Rap rap.

All eyes glance toward the door.

“Ah! That must be my friend!” All Might says.

-Tsukauchi-

His eyes sweep for Mrs. Todoroki, but there’s only one woman in the room who isn't law enforcement or a child, and she’s a lovely, white-haired young woman who looks completely harmless, not any hard lines to her face or proud set of her shoulders like he’d imagined.

Confused, he looks to the nearest cop, who is leaning against the wall next to him. "That's Mrs. Todoroki?" he asks, discretely.

"Don’t be fooled. She'll castrate you with a tea cup."

Tsukauchi pauses for a moment, stalling at the strangely graphic warning.

“Come in,” Mrs. Todoroki says, beckoning him.

Tsukauchi feels like he needs a moment to get the situation straight.

“Thanks for coming, Tsukauchi,” All Might says, in his loud, friendly voice, from the table. The man’s presence is always comforting, despite his size and fame, which by all counts should be intimidating, but his personality is too humble and lighthearted for that. Tsukauchi walks over and sits next to him, appreciating his aura of comfort and safety. All Might is a grounding presence, safety to anchor to in such an unsettling situation. However unpredictably everyone else is acting, All Might is himself.

"I'll get you something to drink — peppermint tea, two sugars?" Mrs. Todoroki asks.

Tsukauchi pauses to wonder why she would ask the exact right thing, and remembers the officer outside who must have had a similar experience. "Can you read minds?" he asks, bluntly.

She laughs, and turns to head to the kitchen. "I'll go get it!"

That isn't an answer.

He looks at the kids. The children are obviously Endeavor’s and his wife’s. They look like their parents.

While Mrs. Todoroki moves about the kitchen filling a cup, he looks at Endeavor.

“Does your wife read minds?” he asks.

Endeavor turns his head to look at his wife and observes her for a moment, with a serious look. Endeavor finally turns back to Tsukauchi. “Not as far as I know.”

Tsukauchi just stares back at him. He doesn’t know the answer?

Tsukauchi glances at their children. They have preteens. They’ve clearly known each other long enough to know each other's quirks. What kind of marriage do they even have?

“It would explain some things,” the hero with the scarf says, making Tsukauchi stare again and wonder what is going on here.

A cup and saucer clinks as it’s set on the table in front of him and he startles and gathers himself.

“I don’t read minds,” she says, and he feels the ring of truth in her words. “Once the kids are done eating, then I’ll explain to them what’s going on and answer their questions, and then we can do your interview. Alright?”

“That sounds very reasonable,” All Might says, quickly, and looks over towards the hero with the scarf, who narrows his eyes like he’s scrutinizing their plan, then agrees like he reserves the right to rescind at any time.

*

Daily conversation is littered with white lies. From polite responses to thoughtless fill in the blanks to embarrassed cover ups, they’re something that Tsukauchi is used to and that ping in flowing and ebbing waves around him, a constant. Even Endeavor, who is described as blunt and more honest than is polite, pings a few times.

The longer he is around Rei Todoroki, the more his attention is drawn to her.

She goes to the kitchen to finish something and Shoto follows like she’s his comfort, shy around strangers. He stands with his chest to her leg and stares up at her, obviously wanting to be lifted, but never asking. He might be the best behaved child that Tsukauchi has ever seen. Shoto sees his mom flex her wrist and he shies away from her, as if he knows he's a burden.

“Shoto, the only reason that I have this arm is for you. Come here,” she says.

It’s the kind of exaggeration that should ping at least a little, but apparently Mrs. Todoroki believes that statement one hundred percent.

Shoto looks up at her with round eyes and blinks, naive to sarcasm or exaggeration, taking everything at face value as Tsukauchi has noticed he tends to do. His mom picks him up, perching him on her hip like it’s Shoto’s designated spot.

Which, apparently, it is.

Chapter Text

-Shoto-

Whenever Mom strokes his back or kisses his head, a nice feeling radiates through him. He's relaxed, in a warm haze of contentment. It's something so new.

Yesterday was miserable and everything was bad, and now today is so different, all backwards, in the best way. Mom is happy, Toya is with him, Mom said Mr. Yorik is gone forever, and Dad is not training him for the first time since he found out Shoto had a quirk. Dad does what Mom says today, and Mom doesn't shoo Shoto away, or avoid him. Instead, she carries him and welcomes him at any time.

He doesn't know why, but Mom loves him again. He hopes she keeps loving him. He doesn't want to go back to how things were.

-Aizawa-

“This is officer Tsukauchi,” All Might says.

All Might’s friend is just a rookie cop.

“How is having one of your friends do the interview going to help this situation?” Shota asks.

Tsukauchi adjusts in his seat and looks over at him. “My quirk is called Lie Detector. I can tell if someone is telling the truth, or not.”

Shota glances at the Todoroki’s reactions to that. Over at the counter carrying Shoto as she works, Mrs. Todoroki doesn’t seem phased at all, like she already knew, which should be odd, but he's already getting used to that about her. She obviously does her research on local quirks. Endeavor seems to take in the information like it’s notable, but doesn’t show any sign of being concerned about the fact that he won’t be able to lie.

The only one that shrinks away and seems bothered by the news is Toya, the kid turning his eyes down and curling his shoulders in like he wants to hide.

Strange…

If Shota thought anyone would be happy about the detective’s quirk, he thought it would be Toya. None of them are acting the way he would have predicted.

-Izuku-

Izuku hums happily and kisses the top of Shoto’s head, then sets him down and sits down at the table himself. Izuku sets his chin between his hands and just watches All Might eat. His All Might from his own time could barely finish a pudding cup — this All Might takes bites almost as big as that. Izuku scoops more food onto All Might's plate every time he sees some space, topping him up. He pauses when he realizes the soy sauce is empty now.

“Shoto, will you get the soy sauce from the fridge for Uncle All Might?”

Tsukauchi chokes on his tea, while All Might pauses in surprise at being addressed that way, and then glows at the title, looking at the kids proudly.

Izuku can’t really explain to Tsukauchi why that one pings as truth. It’s just that Izuku thinks of All Might as family, even if it’s not biological. He did have some of All Might’s DNA in him, though, after ingesting that hair…does that count?

Shoto nods and abandons his chopsticks to fall into his bowl with a clink, splattering the food and tossing a grain of rice out onto the table, as he hops up and scampers to the fridge.

-All Might-

He's never going to finish this food. He looks around at the serving dishes, and there's too much still available.

He's never in his life been so rude as to not finish his plate when at someone's place for dinner, but Rei keeps piling up his plate before he's even halfway through. Before he's even a quarter through.

"Save room for Enji and Shoto’s pie," she says.

He looks at her, and refrains from mentioning who is not saving room for the pie.

Her elbows are on the table, two fists holding up her cheeks, and she’s smiling. "You don't have to eat it all," she says. "Stop whenever you want. I can put it in the fridge and you can come back tomorrow."

He blinks at her, then laughs.

He's never had an adult so blatantly ignore the fact that he's a busy celebrity hero and try to usurp his time in so friendly and charming of a way.

"Maybe I will," he says.

There’s a small growl sound, and he looks over at Enji who is scowling at the comment. All Might tilts his head. Is Enji angry at him for some reason?

-Izuku-

“Don’t mind him. He’s just sore, because you’re the number one hero, and he's not.”

Enji turns his attention to them and clanks his chopsticks down onto his bowl.

“You can jump across Japan in an hour, yet my crime resolution rate is more than yours. You spend way too much time talking to children and reporters, and even though delegating is one of the most useful parts of case-solving, you choose to work alone, or with a mere secretary or one sidekick. You're inefficient, and you squander opportunity. You deserve to have number one taken from you,“ he snaps.

All Might is taken aback for a moment, eyes wide and no longer smiling. There's a beat of silence, as the whole room stares, and then the string of All Might's tension cuts and he throws back his head and gives a booming laugh. He rights himself and looks at Enji deviously. "Alright! You're on!" he says, with a competitive edge to his grin. "Take it from me."

"If you thought you were the only person to ever talk shit to All Might's face, you're mistaken," Izuku says, with a flat, ironic sort of smile. "You're not going to make All Might cry and leave the industry by insulting him." He switches to English: “And he certainly never does any hero work off the record. Because OP superpowers are only bestowed onto good people like All Might, so there are no supervillains out there on All Might’s level that anyone wants to keep a secret from the public.”

Tsukauchi glances at him with one eye wincing slightly at the force of that sarcasm hitting his quirk and looks surprised at the sudden lie, and All Might goes stiff.

-Enji-

All Might looks surprised at her comment, and Enji narrows his eyes, brow furrowing.

She's right. All Might's records are suspicious. As much as he doesn't like All Might, his personality isn't congruent with laziness, and the amount of inefficiency goes beyond even this guy’s obliviousness, doesn’t it? “I’m not the public. Why haven’t I heard about this?”

All Might waves his hands in that ridiculous way he does. “There’s no secret supervillain!”

Enji catches the way the Lie Detector’s eyes widen before the man fixes his expression, and All Might looks like he realizes his mistake as well. Enji turns his gaze on All Might again, narrowed even more. “All Might.” He doesn’t have to say more than his name. It’s on his face and in his tone, and All Might shrinks under his glower.

“Talk about this later, Enji,” Rei says.

Enji wants answers, but she’s right. The children have stopped eating, and even if Enji is ranked high enough that he should be in on such things, not everyone else in the room qualifies the same way. He reluctantly subsides.

-Tsukauchi-

His mind spins with this new information. A secret supervillain that is giving All Might trouble?

Everyone at the table is obviously thinking about it, the mood changed. Even the kids seem to know that something is up, even though part of the conversation was in English. Shoto looks interested, but not worried.

Shoto looks at Tsukauchi. “Mom can beat All Might.”

The statement pings as true, the naive child who takes everything at face value believing his own words. Tsukuachi puts on a smile for the child.

“Oh? Cool. How would she beat All Might?”

Shoto’s eyes look to the side, thinking, then come back to him. “Very easily,” he chirps.

Chapter Text

-Izuku-

Izuku sweeps a glance across the solemn faces around the table and then picks up his cup and takes a drink of tea, his free hand petting Shoto's back. Tsukauchi frowns and his eyes are troubled, but the man rallies himself at Shoto's innocent comment.

“Wow.” Tsukauchi pastes on a smile for Shoto. “How would you beat All Might, Mrs. Todoroki?” he asks, looking at Izuku, a playful question to humor Shoto.

“As gently as possible,” Izuku says.

Natsuo looks at All Might, jabbing his cheek with his chopsticks, surprising himself and dropping his noodles on the table.

Shoto thinks that’s funny and giggles, spitting rice. He looks down at the wet grains on Izuku’s arm in shock, and then his head turtles down between his shoulders and he looks up at Izuku with fear in his eyes, shrinking to put space between them.

Izuku had been going to smile at seeing Shoto’s rare giggle, but Shoto’s expression wipes any amusement away.

“Sorry, Mom.” His hand clenches in the front of his shirt.

Izuku pulls him close again, kissing the top of his hair. “I thought it was funny, too, and I like your laugh.”

Shoto blinks up at him, as if the response is unexpected and surprising, but he settles into Izuku’s side again. He glances up at Izuku several times as if to check if there’s a sign Izuku is not wanting him there anymore, but gradually his tension disappears and he seems content to lean into Izuku and cuddle while he eats just a little more easily than he has in Rei’s memory for the last year or two.

Izuku silently strokes Shoto’s hair, watching him eat. He can’t help frowning and feeling unsettled as he remembers sitting at this table and believing his child is being abused but merely covering his face as Shoto is dragged to the training room, or making the children upset with his crying, and then letting the children be separated and neglecting to even visit to say goodnight for months after the children were sent to the apartment.

The idea of returning to his own time and body and leaving the children behind with — who? Who would take care of them the way they should be?

Foster care doesn't even bear thinking about.

He loves All Might, but All Might is a workaholic that would leave them with others everyday and who has All For One to think about, and would bring a dangerous target onto the children's back.

Aizawa would protect them and their privacy and keep them safe, but he works as much as All Might and has a terrible idea of nutrition and social needs, and as much as Izuku cares for him, he knows the children would still miss their parents and that there are things that Aizawa just can't provide as an underground hero in his early twenties. The children would end up taking care of him and themselves in a lot of ways.

Enji comes home every day at the same time, pays millions of yen to provide around the clock protection for the children, and makes sure they have the best schooling and nutrition, but his relationships with them are strained at best and his ability to connect with them and comfort them are next to nil.

Rei almost burned Shoto's face yesterday. Izuku can't even affect her, or help her, or talk to her, because he is her, but Shoto is too attached to her to ever be fine if he lost his ability to live with her.

Izuku hasn’t done enough, yet, to leave them. Enji and Rei need to step up and be the parents that the kids need. They're the ones that the children are attached to, that the kids will feel abandoned and be traumatized by if they don't treat them well, the ones that would leave scars if the children lost them.

Toya finishes his food quickly, while the other children lag behind.

Shoto has the last bite still on his chopsticks when Toya can’t wait anymore.

“Mom—”

Izuku holds out his arm to invite Toya under it, and Toya doesn’t hesitate to scoot into his side, looking up at him.

“Yes, Toya. I’ll explain now.”

Every pair of eyes in the room turn to Izuku. All of the officers and Enji and the children are all watching him now.

Izuku has been using the time to think of how to explain in a way that would be calming and not make them anxious. The last thing he wants to use to convince Toya to stay home is worries that the foster care system poses risks and will separate them.

“Nothing that anyone says right now should alarm you. In an hour, or two, we’ll play outside together and everything will be alright, so don’t worry about what happens before that. Dad and I had a little fight, but we’re not mad at each other and we’re fine now. The police just need to talk to us about our fight and make sure that you kids are safe here. It might seem scary to you, because this is a new situation and you don’t know what to expect, but Dad and I have a lot of experience with the law and are perfectly capable of handling this situation.”

“Are they going to put us in foster care?” Natsuo asks. Shoto and Fuyumi look up at Izuku in fear, and Toya tenses.

Izuku pinches Natsuo’s cheek gently. “Imagine you had a rock collection and someone demanded that you put it outside temporarily. It might not be worth it to you to argue. But imagine if you had a diamond collection. You would want it to stay behind your highest walls and strongest protection. Dad and I have four little diamonds,” he says, and taps each of their noses in a row, “and no one is going to convince us to put them outside.”

All Might's eyes tear up. Officer Ueno winces and pales, dread on his face. Eraser is frowning.

Across from him, Tsukauchi tilts his head and seems optimistic and curious, glad to see the importance conveyed of the children and the calming and touching effect Izuku's words have on them. Enji’s arms are folded, but he looks relaxed and doesn’t show any disagreement.

Aizawa stands, abruptly. “I understand your hesitation to trust strangers to provide foster care.” He bows at a ninety degree angle, hands at his sides. “Allow me to take them. I will care for them personally.”

Izuku appreciates the gesture, and if the children’s safety was his only concern, he would trust Aizawa implicitly. But once he let the children go into foster care, getting them back would be a process he wouldn't have much control over. Besides that, would Aizawa know what to do when Shoto cries for his mom and won't stop? When Toya gets angry, or Fuyumi gets anxious, or Natsuo goes quiet and won't talk? He's not a seasoned teacher right now, and even when he is, he's not the most open, or talkative. Once you get to know him, you find out that he's soft, but he can come across as scary and cold, and he's awkward at times. The children need more than physical protection, and they’re looking at Izuku and Enji anxiously at the hero’s action. They want their parents.

“Take my offer to tutor Shoto as a live-in teacher,” Izuku says. “I’ll pay you upfront and put a clause for you to get a payout, if you quit.”

Aizawa straightens and looks at him with flat eyelids. “You would give me an incentive to quit?”

“An incentive to take the job,” Izuku says, in correction. “I hope you won’t quit, but if you do, you can consider it our thanks for giving it a chance.”

Enji is frowning, brows low, but he looks more considering than angry, analyzing Izuku.

-Toya-

The hero actually offered to take them into his own home. He seems genuinely concerned about them, and Toya would go with him, but he knows that Shoto won’t be satisfied with anyone but Mom. He’s only six, but Shoto already worries about Mom and would be upset if she got left behind. Nothing will distract him from her lack of presence, so they can't be separated.

Having the hero stay instead would be an alternative that Toya wouldn't hate. Toya would feel a lot better with Eraserhead here in the house with Shoto and Mom. He looks at his father, and Dad isn’t protesting like he did when Mom mentioned it the first time. But with the cop with the lie detector quirk, things are going to come out that are going to be bad, and there’s not going to be anything they can do about it when the man can hear the truth.

Shoto's face is content and happy, snuggling into Mom. Toya swallows at the sight, his chest hurting. It's all going to fall apart soon and Shoto will be torn from Mom, and Toya knows he won’t be able to comfort him enough to stop him from sobbing forever. She’s been pretending that everything is fine and making Dad look good, like she always does, but she’s not going to be able to keep doing that when she’s up against a lie detector, and Dad is going to show his true self once she fails, and get rid of her. Toya knows that Dad doesn’t love Mom. It’s always been just a matter of time before he made her leave.

-Tsukauchi-

Mrs. Todoroki comforts the children with one of the softest and most determined looks that he's ever seen. Despite everything that's shocked him about her since he's arrived, it puts even Tsukauchi at ease.

“Dad and I need to talk to the police now. You four go watch TV until we’re done, and then it will be your turn, but don’t worry, we’ll be here with you the whole time,” she says, to her children.

Fuyumi stands and Toya follows suit, the two older children taking the hands of the younger. They obediently get up and go to the living room couch, far enough away for the TV to cover voices from the kitchen. They put on a show and turn it up louder, understanding their mother's intentions and cooperating to cover their voices.

Tsukauchi glances over Endeavor and his wife as he takes the report to look it over. They don’t seem nervous about the interview, and seem in sync with each other. He can't believe such a demeanor to be possible in an abusive dynamic.

Tsukauchi is hopeful that this interview will go well and he can give them the all clear, as All Might desires. They seem to think that they have nothing to hide, by the looks of them, and Tsukauchi finds that reassuring.

-Toya-

“We can’t talk to the police,” Toya says.

Leaving the house with all of them together was one thing, but putting Mom at risk, especially when Shoto will feel responsible for causing it, is another. They can’t let the police take them and bring Dad’s anger down on her.

“But Mom said we have to,” Natuso says.

“Talking is dangerous," Toya says. "That’s why there’s so many sayings about it.”

“Sayings?” Fuyumi asks.

“Loose lips sink ships? A closed mouth catches no flies?” Toya says.

“Snitches get stitches,” Natsuo contributes.

Shoto pipes up, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law, you have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney— ”

“Right.” Toya ruffles Shoto’s hair, cutting off his recitation. All those crime shows and news channels left a trace, it seems. “No matter what they say, don’t talk to the police. Not even if Mom and Dad tell you to. They have to tell you to, in front of the police, but there’s no way to know if they mean it. They might just be saying it so they don’t get in trouble. If you want to go outside and play together like mom said, then we need to get rid of the police first and not get Mom and Dad in trouble.”

-Enji-

The lie detector taps his papers and looks to him first.

“You know, of course, that it’s protocol to take the victim to a separate room—”

Enji dislikes being referred to as ‘the victim’ but doesn’t say anything, not verbally, anyway. He feels his face react with a slight pinch to his mouth and eyelids dropping partway, nonplussed.

“You have lie detection, and it’s not like I’m going to be intimidated into lying anyway.”

“Right,” Tsukauchi nods, and doesn’t push it.

“Have you and your wife gotten into any physical fights before this one?”

“No.”

Rei standing in his path and needing to be moved aside, or hanging off of his arm like a spoiled child, hardly constitutes a fight.

“Have you ever felt unsafe because of her?”

“No.”

Tsukauchi pauses, mouth parted, and then says, reluctantly, “That was a lie.”

Enji raises a brow, then drops it and huffs. “For a moment, at breakfast this morning, I thought she was going to throw a knife at me,” he says, “but it became clear that she was only getting my attention in order to shut me up. I would barely classify it as fear. I’m not afraid of being attacked. I deal with that sort of thing every day.”

Tsukauchi looks solemn and nods, like it’s a sad story. Like a hero career is an unfortunate life, or like Enji has an unfortunate life.

Enji gives him a flat look, not liking the way he's being looked at. "I'm not afraid of Rei."

Tsukauchi seems to finally take that properly, and his annoying, sympathetic looks stop.

“Good." Tsukauchi clears his throat. “And the children. No physical altercations with them?”

Rei frowns and her eyes glaze over, like she’s remembering something.

Enji’s mind automatically brings up Toya throwing fire at him when he called the nanny service, but that was a child's tantrum, not a physical altercation.

They aren’t asking if the kids hit the parents.

“No,” he says, and Tsukauchi’s brow furrows.

“I’m training two of them to be heroes,” Enji points out in response to the expression.

“You’ve never gotten physical with them outside of training, or for disciplinary purposes, or out of anger?”

“Of course not.”

Tsukauchi nods.

“Just one mandatory question to wrap up, then. Do you believe that this home is a fit and safe place for your children?”

“Yes.”

Tsukauchi nods and turns toward Rei, opening his report again. His shoulders have relaxed, and Ueno looks relieved beside him. Eraser is frowning, but is standing down, and not meddling.

Enji can see that the situation is going to end well. His stomach settles and the tension in his arms abates, his temper evening out.

-Izuku-

He opens his eyes in his own body in the future, sitting on a bench next to the old lady. Shoto and his siblings are gone, left behind back in time.

Izuku’s veins hurt and his stomach gives an attempt at heaving.

It’s only an imagining, but it could happen at any moment. He could leave them behind and never be able to reach them again.

He looks over at the children sitting together on the couch in the other room. He doesn't want them to grow up in a broken home, full of sadness and insecurity, or to be separated amongst strangers, like they’re extra pieces, burdens being passed around, with no place of their own. He doesn't want them to feel like their parents don't love them.

He looks over at Enji’s face. It's younger, but it's the same one that in the future recognizes his own faults, and promises to atone.

Izuku needs that future Enji now. But asking for ten years of development to happen immediately is a lot to ask.

He turns his focus to Tsukauchi, folding his hands together on the table and setting his shoulders, knowing there's only one path he's willing to walk.

-Tsukauchi-

Tsukauchi runs his eyes down the file, referencing the details for his questions.

"For the recording, you're Mrs. Rei Todoroki?"

"For now."

He keeps his eyes down on the report in his hands, carefully does not look anywhere near the apparently in danger of divorce hero sitting just a few feet away. He clears his throat.

He skims down to the next section of information and continues.

“You were in a physical altercation with your husband at approximately two-thirty this afternoon, and your child, Shoto, was present. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

He lifts a page to glance at the next, and the only sound in the kitchen is the swish of the paper and the chatter of the TV from the living room.

He continues. “The altercation stemmed from a disagreement on Shoto’s training. Shoto called emergency services when his father was hurt from the altercation, and police and heroes arrived. They attempted to take the children into custody, but you and your husband refused to let them do so, and your husband threatened bodily harm to an officer. All correct?”

“Yes.”

Tsukauchi puts the papers down on the table. It seems like the Todorokis have had a crazy afternoon, but they’re attached to their kids and seem to be treating them well. It was just a fight, even if it never should have gotten that far. If Shoto hadn’t called for unnecessary medical help for his dad, no one would have known. But…

“You’re aware that these are troubling evidences, and that the law is clear on removing the children and doing an investigation on you and your husband’s fitness to care for your children?”

“I’m aware.”

She sounds calm and reasonable. Competent. Tsukauchi honestly has no alarm bells going off about her. She is intent on providing and caring for her kids, and although he can't say that she's fit just yet, he at least admires her for fighting to keep her children. Foster care is a traumatic experience — being taken away from their parents hurts them emotionally and stresses them out. Mrs. Todoroki had calmed and comforted her children and taken care of them first, above anyone else, or any other concern around her.

“For what reason did you attack your husband?” he asks.

“Shoto didn’t want to train and I told him he didn’t have to. Enji wouldn’t take no for an answer willingly, so I made him take it.”

“I see.” Tsukauchi honestly isn’t sure where that falls on his own moral line. She protected the kid the only way possible, since she couldn’t call on outside help or enforce her will gently on someone so much stronger than her. It wouldn’t be considered protection in the eyes of the law, since Enji is allowed to enforce his training on his children, but Tsukauchi can see how Shoto would see it as protection. Even though fighting in front of children is considered emotionally damaging, Shoto doesn’t seem upset by it at all. Maybe he even just sees it as more sparring, being so young and already in hero training.

“As long as neither of you plan to continue getting into physical fights...” he looks between them.

“I’d really rather not,” Mrs. Todoroki says.

“I never started any physical fight,” Enji says.

Tsukauchi nods. “Some counseling and a couple of follow up visits should sort this out.” It seems he can probably jot this one down with enough evidence to be able to smooth this out, seeing as there are no serious injuries, it is their first time anything like this happened, and neither of them want to repeat it. “Right. Just your last word, then,” he says. “And we’ll be out of your hair.”

Ueno is packing up his things and putting on his hat, and several of the heroes have already disappeared, discreetly slipping out the door. An officer is already on the phone, telling child protection that the interview was passed.

Just the final mandatory question. “Do you believe that this home is a fit and safe place for your children?”

Mrs. Todoroki laces her fingers in front of her on the table and meets his eyes steadily.

“No, I don’t.”

Tsukauchi's mouth parts in surprise, and behind him, Ueno fumbles, his hat slapping onto the floor, and swears.

-Rei-

"They have a lot of nice books here — Izuku?"

Mom's figure comes up behind her, casting a shadow on the page as Rei skims the table of contents of the business book.

She doesn't know much, but now that she’s a kid, she has years to study and figure out everything she needs.

I'll learn about money and be a rich and powerful business person, like father.

She slams the book closed in decision. "I want this one!"

"That one?" Mom's eyebrows go high. "Why don't you come look at the books I found? There's ones with heroes, and pictures—"

"This is the only book I want. Please?"

Her children are fine, better than she’s ever seen them, and she’s away from Enji, with a mother that supports her more than just listening to her problems. A mom that actually does something about them. It’s like the universe completely unburdened her and gave her a whole new chance at life.

“Erh…” Mom says.

Rei pouts, and Mom deflates. “Okay, but let’s get some others from the children's section, too.”

Chapter Text

-Izuku-

Steam fills the air and Shoto looks up at him with wet eyes, tears dripping down his cheeks. "What does it mean that my left side is unbearable?"

Izuku laces his hands in front of himself on the table, closing his eyes for a second and letting out a pained breath. But he meets Tsukauchi’s gaze steadily, resolved.

“No, I don’t.”

Ueno drops his hat and Enji’s folded arms jerk, every muscle in his body pulled taut like someone yanked a string. Fire lights his body as his temper flares.

Enji opens his mouth. Izuku touches his arm and ices over his shoulders, putting the flames out. Enji glares at him, but then follows Izuku's gaze. The children are staring at them because of the burst of flames. He shuts his mouth, reining himself.

Izuku smiles at the children and waves. Used to their father’s temper being short and seeing that their mother is smiling, the kids go back to talking amongst themselves, reassured by Izuku’s confidence.

“I’m confessing something I should have told you right away,” Izuku says, too low for the children to hear what he’s saying.

He drops his smile and looks at Enji.

-Tsukauchi-

Mrs. Todoroki’s admission comes like lightning out of a blue sky — unexpected to the point of seeming impossible, shocking. His whole body stops as he momentarily doesn’t know how to react.

He’d been about to clear them, completely trusting her with the children. She’d been admirable all evening when it came to her motherly duties and seemed to have her husband well in hand when it came to enforcing her parenting standards.

“The only reason I have this arm is for you.”

“Dad and I have four little diamonds.”

She’d seemed so calm and capable and caring, and the children responded to her trustingly. An obvious blue sky.

But he remembers one other thing that she’d said.

“For the recording, you’re Mrs. Rei Todoroki?”

“For now.”

The reason is nothing like he’d imagined. And the prediction seems to be about to come to fruition by the look on Endeavor’s face.

Ueno picks up his hat and walks over to the table.

Mrs. Todoroki turns to face her husband, giving him her sole attention.

“You already know some of it — there’s a reason that you separated the children from me. Unfortunately, you’ve underestimated the danger that I can pose.”

-Enji-

The fact that she’s accusing herself and not him eases the tension in him, but leaves him confused, eyeing her. He’d been about to file for divorce and rip custody of the children from her as it seemed she was going to force him to defend his position as their father, but now she’s facing him as if she has things to disclose.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

It’s true she hasn’t been a good mother, but to call her dangerous to the children is exaggerating things. She’s a bad example and the children are overly emotional because of her, but their safety is intact and with her sudden change in attitude things are improving. She hasn’t even seen the children in months except for Shoto, and their time together is short each day, his son’s time deliberately scheduled with his tutor and then with Enji for training.

“I’ve put them at risk by not informing you until now. You’ll probably end up a single father. I’m sorry.”

“Single father?” He narrows his eyes, as much in confusion as ire. What’s she talking about?

I’m going to be the best parent. The look in her eyes and her actions following the declaration had convinced him she was set on that goal. For her to abandon it now doesn’t make much sense. Even right this moment she’s reassuring the children and prompting him how to act in front of them. She’d never done that before. Now, she does it as if it’s her first instinct. She’s helping the children get along with him rather than stoking their fear of him.

Even after kicking him in the balls and defending her position on Shoto’s training, somehow that hadn’t come with her pushing him away or trying to separate him from the children. She’d called him closer and had him cook with them instead. She’d carried Shoto to him when the police moved in to take their children and promised the kids that everything would be okay, so how did it make sense for her to abandon them now?

-Izuku-

Enji already looks very unimpressed with him. The details are not going to improve his mood. Izuku’s insides twist at the thought of Enji’s reaction to the incident, but he can’t back down now.

Rei could come back to her body at any moment. He has no idea what her reaction will be, or how the future will play out after this point.

He’s in her body and he can’t avoid the consequences. It’s too dangerous to shield himself. Shoto’s safety has to come first.