Chapter Text
It's worse than the report had claimed. There's at least fifty Nomu. Fighting against one had already left Enji in a hospital bed with grievous injuries. Even with the both of them, even if it turns out these Nomu aren't the advanced versions, there's no guarantee the fight will turn out in their favour. The grim truth of the matter is that this isn't a fight for victory. It's a fight for time.
"I'm the only one in the area with enough firepower to delay them." Enji states firmly.
"No, you're not." Shouto growls, referring to himself. Strictly speaking, that is true, but they cannot afford to delay the back-up requested for the main battle downtown.
"You were specifically requested for. Your friends need your help." Enji isn't going to compromise on this, and he isn’t above blatant manipulation. He isn't going to let any kid, let alone Shouto, stay here to face an army of Nomu, and they can't both. "I will delay them for as long as I am able. The other pro heroes in the area will be dispatched to their designated locations as planned. Send back up to me only if they can be spared."
There's a long, terrible moment where Shouto glares at him, looking like he's about to argue. But then, he snaps his mouth shut and nods, a mechanical jerk of his head. His fists are clenched, and Enji doesn't know what to say. There's no protocol on how to deal with this sort of situation. Even if there were, it probably wouldn't have applied. He's… made sure of that.
"Stay safe. Give Fuyumi, Natsuo… and your mother my regards-" Enji mutters gruffly. "-And my apologies." He knows it's too little, too late, but it's all he can give them.
"Don't be stupid. Tell them yourself." Shouto chokes out, his voice thicker and rougher than Enji has ever heard.
Enji nods once, terse and perfunctory. His first white lie, and an utterly ineffective one.
They both know he won't be coming back.
There are no gushy platitudes of don't do it, no attempt at a hug, or even a pat on the back. They - or their relationship, it's hard to tell the difference - are too damaged for that. They both hesitate, nonetheless, a sense that they shouldn't just leave things hanging like this. But then, there's a sudden crack of a distant volley of explosions, and the moment passes.
Shouto turns away first. He sends one wave of his flames toward the incoming horde, then sprints away on a path of his mother's ice, a shock of red and white. He doesn't look back. It's probably for the best.
'I'm proud of you.' Enji realises abruptly, once Shouto is gone, is what he should have said, even if Shouto doesn't care. But he’s no stranger to missed opportunities, and there's no time for regrets. He swallows the lump in his throat - now, of all times, really? - and turns back to face the Nomu steadily advancing towards him. Enji squares his shoulders and steels himself, preparing for the fight for his life.
(It's disgusting that of all ways to step down from the mantle of number one hero, he's going to be, once again, emulating All Might's final act. Except, unlike All Might, he isn't taking down the final boss. He's merely handling the distraction. He'll have to trust that the newly minted pro heroes - they're all still so young - and the older veterans alike can win their battles. If they defeat Shigaraki and All-for-One, his death won't be in vain; the boost to public morale will outweigh the hit from the death of the number one hero. He has to have faith in that, if nothing else.)
The first wave of Nomu leap at him, and then there's no time to think. It's a blur of red, an endless mix of fire and rage, blood and pain. He takes down at least ten and injures up to half of them, he thinks, before he reaches his limit - coughing blood out from his lungs, barely being able to stand. He doesn't know how long it's been, if he's done enough, if he's failed everyone. But he doesn't have a choice but to keep going, and hope it is. He lets out a roar, igniting himself in a tower of flames burning hotter and brighter than he's ever managed, the flames spiralling up a luminous blue around him, burning him too. Touya's flames, Enji thinks, allowing himself a bloody grin as it takes down a few more of the bastards still brainlessly clawing at him. Not bad for a last hurrah.
He can still hear screaming in the background, the sound of helicopters in the air above him. He's vaguely aware that someone seems to be running towards him, but that can't be right.
The searing pain in Enji's chest intensifies. 'Tell them yourself.' He takes in a shaky breath. It mixes with blood and rattles in his chest. His eyelids are heavy, and he can't keep them from fluttering shut. This... isn't going to work. Sorry, Shouto. Maybe next time. The cloud of fog in his mind grows, and slowly, the ringing in his ears fades. At least, he thinks, they will get along just fine without him. It's a bittersweet thought, but it's not one he's going to have to contemplate for long. Enji draws in one last breath, then welcomes the darkness that swallows him.
*****
Smoke, fire, flames that flicker red and blue. Cherry blossoms, frost on the window panes, a vaseful of Amaryllises. Anger, shouting, boiling water. A psychiatric ward, a school, a gravestone.
*****
Enji wakes up with his heart pounding in his chest. He gasps, his lungs drawing in air greedily. He can breathe. It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts, except for his throat. He forcibly modulates his breathing, something drummed into him since early days of becoming a pro hero, then blinks, letting his vision get acclimatised to the dim lighting. Enji recognises this ceiling. He… survived? No, that's impossible. Why would he be in his room instead of a hospital ward?
There's a light pressure on his arm - a hand, he realises. He turns to his right, then stops short.
She shouldn't be here. He blinks again, but she's still there. Only…
"We woke you up because you were screaming in your sleep." It's coloured with worry and apology, but Enji would recognise the soft, melodic cadences of her voice anywhere.
It is Rei. And she looks far younger than she should be, barely a day over twenty-four.
‘We’ - he realises belatedly, only when a young boy - Touya? - clambers up onto the bed clumsily, then pulls at Enji's arm.
If this is a dying hallucination, it's a strange one. Why would he dream up a scene set in a time where none of the rest of his children even exist?
"Are you hurt?" Touya asks, his voice high and face scrunched up in worry, the bright blue eyes staring at him a reflection of his own. Three-year-old Touya, Enji thinks numbly. It's both easy and anything but to look at him and think of Dabi, wreathed in blue flames and covered in scars.
"No." He answers past the lump in his throat, not trusting himself to say anything more. Touya - this tiny version of him that Enji has tried so hard to forget for the sake of his sanity - peers at him and nearly falls on him, forcing Enji to support him. He awkwardly pats Touya on the back, then turns to Rei, who interprets it as a call for help.
"Daddy's okay, let's go get you back to sleep so he can rest too." Rei expertly coaxes Touya back into her arms. Touya yawns, as if to prove her point, and lets his mother pick him up.
"Good night, daddy." Touya announces.
"Good night, Touya." Enji replies after a beat. It comes out thicker than he meant it to, and Rei twists back to look at him, confusion written in the worried tilt of her eyebrows. She leaves the door open.
Enji exhales slowly, reaching for a phone on the bedside table he can't decide if he wants to be there or not. His fingers close around metal, and there it is - an outdated model he'd long abandoned in favour of newer technology. He unlocks it, wincing at the glare of the screen, then looks at the date.
It's as he thought.
Enji is quite sure that deathbed dreams don't last so long, and shouldn't be so realistic as to even include time period-appropriate background props.
He raises a hand to touch the side of his face. There's smooth, unblemished skin where a scar should be. He lets out a shuddering breath. Everything points to one logical conclusion, but how can this be? A latent quirk manifestation? He doesn't understand. There's a natural order to life. People live, then die. They don't live, then die, then get mentally thrown back into the past to live again. That's not how life works.
There's movement in the doorway that Enji catches out of the corner of his eye. He turns to face it, watching as Rei walks in, carrying a glass of water.
This time, without a tiny boy launching himself at Enji, he takes a moment to just look at his wife. He… hasn't seen her in so long.
It's the same white hair, the same grey eyes. But she's still so young, and with the benefit - curse - of hindsight, Enji can spot the differences, the crucial ones. She doesn't walk like she's trying to shrink into herself; she doesn't drop her gaze to the ground the very moment their eyes meet. Somehow, even though her hair is tangled and there are bags under her eyes, she looks far healthier, far more alive. She looks… beautiful.
(And then, he'd burnt her out.)
Enji closes his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. He'd thought he would never see her again. It feels like cheating, somehow, to get this chance. By the time he opens them again, the glass is on the bedside table, and Rei is next to him, barely thirty centimetres away.
She reaches a hand out towards him, a hesitant, uncertain motion. Enji doesn't move, doesn't speak, just keeps his eyes trained on hers. There's still flecks of confusion amidst the worry in her gaze, and something tender underneath that makes him look away. Her fingers brush against his cheek, catching a tear he hadn't known had fallen. It's a gentle, barely-there touch. It shouldn't be able to cause such a powerful pang in his chest.
"Enji?" Rei asks softly, drawing him out of his head. It's been a decade since he last heard her say his name, but he remembers, and the duality of losing and regaining seizes in his throat. He probably couldn't speak if he wanted to. With the way he’s acting, she must think that he has gone insane.
When Rei withdraws her hand, Enji catches her wrist. She stiffens - an almost imperceptible tensing of her shoulders - and something in his heart clenches. He loosens his grip, needing her to know she has the choice - but she doesn't let go. She doesn't wrench her hand away when he gently brings her wrist to his lips; she doesn't recoil when he lightly kisses the underside of her wrist.
They stay like that for a few long moments, just the sound of their breaths in the air between them. It's a selfish moment of escape, and it takes a while before he musters the strength to speak.
"It was a nightmare," Enji says quietly. His voice is rough from its apparently recent abuse, yet much less gruff than it will grow into with age. He lifts his gaze back up to meet Rei's, watching as surprise flashes through her eyes. "About our family."
In a move of surprising boldness, Rei perches on the bed next to him, then threads her fingers through his. He can't help his weakness - no, he's not going to think of it as that anymore - the flutter of warmth in his chest at the simple initiation of contact. It's a strange mix of unfamiliar and home, and it gives him the push he needs to continue with his narration.
"I dreamt of us, decades in the future." He murmurs. It doesn't feel right dismissing an entire life he's led as a dream, but he needs to get it out, to prove to himself it happened, and how else could he ever describe it?
"Touya manifested a flame quirk like mine. I trained him every day, subjecting him to a… Spartan regime. I was pushing him to his limits - and beyond them. You asked me to stop," His voice cracks. How mortifying. But Rei doesn't comment, and so he continues. "But I didn't listen. And eventually, he snapped and ran away. When I next heard from him, he'd become a villain. Not a petty criminal, but an… established one."
"Where was I throughout all of this?" Rei asks, her voice surprisingly strong.
Enji clenches his free hand, fighting to keep a torrent of anger-disgust-hatred at bay. Rei's thumb starts drawing circles on his palm, a slow and tentative motion. Once upon a time, he would have interpreted it as patronising, and the sheer presumption of the action would have been enough of a trigger to set him off. Now, it still isn't soothing per se, but it helps to ground him, helps him to draw in a slow breath, and he can appreciate the thought behind it.
"In a psychiatric ward." Enji answers hollowly. "You threw a kettle of boiling water at Sh - Touya when he was a little older, because he reminded you of me." He pauses, forcibly unclenching his fist. "You would get panic attacks in my presence, so the doctors recommended we did not meet. We didn't see each other for the next ten years."
There's a beat of silence at that, and the motion of Rei's thumb stills.
"I'm here, and perfectly sane," Rei begins haltingly. "And have you seen Touya?" She pauses, evidently unsure how to continue, because the problem there had always been Enji, not Touya.
An uncomfortable silence falls upon them - because they both know the truth: that maybe not yet, but at the rate he's going, he could push them off the edge. There's an ugly part of him that hates her for acknowledging it, and a growing part of him that's all the more disgusted at himself. It's a dark coil of anger deep in the pit of his stomach, reminding him that he was the root, the catalyst, the trigger for their family's downward spiral. It did happen - he reminds himself harshly. He can't forget that, even if time has actually reset itself.
In some ways, it's harder to force himself to look Rei in the eyes than to battle fifty Nomu. But he does, because he refuses to be a coward, and he owes her that much, at least. "No, I haven't. Because I haven't been around the two of you enough." He admits, his tone low and confessional. A breath hitches in Rei's throat. She makes to say something, but Enji cuts her off - for the last time, he promises - before he loses the nerve to say what needs to be said.
"I've been a terrible husband and father." Enji says plainly, the words coming out in a rush. His lips curve up into a bitter smile. "I… know I'm not good with emotions. I've never known how to be anything else. But I've seen where that leads, and… I don't want to be that anymore." His words and delivery are embarrassingly clumsy, but he forces himself to plough through.
"I know that I've hurt you, many times over, and for that…" Enji pauses, taking a deep breath, feeling deeply outside his comfort zone. "I apologise." For that, and everything worse that I've done that you don't remember. "I might not deserve another chance, but I - I hope you'll give me one - and help me to be better. Stop me when I go overboard, tell me when - if - I scare you - and I'll… try to listen." He finishes his plea, because it's somehow turned into one, rough and stumbling and uncertain.
Rei's eyes are wide. The expression on her face is one he can't decipher. She could have been carved from ice, the way she's still as a statue and hasn't said anything. Enji's lungs constrict. Perhaps he's already too late; maybe she doesn't want to try.
His thoughts cut off abruptly when Rei all but launches herself at him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. For a few moments, he just sits there like a fool, until his brain catches up and his arms slowly jerk upward to hold her in an embrace. It's a bucket of cold water poured over his head - the realisation that in the past decades, he's held more strangers in his arms than he has his wife - and it's probably true even in this era of his life. Rei's skin is cool to the touch, more so than is strictly comfortable, but she's wonderfully solid and present. He can't help closing his eyes and leaning in to the touch, savouring the simple miracle that she's here, that he's here. He breathes in the scent of her hair. Floral, he thinks, fondness tinged with a sort of hysterical edge, of course.
He only realises that she's crying when he feels a patch of dampness growing on his shoulder, through his shirt.
"What's wrong?" Enji asks, half alarmed, and half darkly wondering if even in trying to fix things, he's already managed to mess up.
"Nothing." Comes the muffled reply, before Rei looks up and pulls away. The corners of her lips quirk up into a smile. It isn't particularly wide, more measured hope than happiness, but it transforms her face regardless, making her look… radiant. "That's my answer to your previous question as well." She adds, soft yet sure, and a crushing pressure in Enji's chest, one that he hadn't known was there, lightens.
He blames it on shock at his potential unique circumstances and the emotional rollercoaster that his last three hours have been that words fail him yet again. Instead, he gives in to the urge to lean down, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. He lets his lips linger for a few moments, trying to convey all that he can't properly verbalise.
Rei looks back at him, countless questions in her silver-grey eyes.
"We should sleep." Enji says, partly because it's true - he's physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and not entirely convinced all of this isn't a figment of his imagination - and partly because he doesn't think he can answer all of her questions, and the last thing he wants is to ruin their current fragile understanding. He promptly regrets it when Rei nods, her expression closes off, and she makes to get off the bed.
They had always maintained separate living quarters in the name of privacy, but it feels wrong, somehow, for this to end with them going their separate ways, as if nothing had happened.
"Will you stay the night?" Enji asks, almost impulsively, before he can second-guess his own request.
Rei's eyes widen. They've never done this, them sleeping together with her in his bed instead of him in hers. He'd never asked before he did; they've never done it for the sake of it without coupling beforehand. But what he's just told her - he means it. He needs her to know that he does, that he's going to try his best to be better. He's Endeavour, and his best is definitely more than just 'good enough', more than just avoiding his own personal pitfalls.
Rei hesitates for a moment, then nods, a small smile on her face. "Let me check on Touya first. I’ll go get my things."
What's between them is tenuous, frayed - but it's not broken. Not yet.
In another lifetime, Enji had cut the strings, had pushed away everyone he'd deemed superfluous in his single-minded pursuit of number one. He had lost sight of everything else that mattered while hurtling towards something only he could see. And in the end? He'd got what he wanted, the last way he'd ever wanted it. There had been nothing waiting for him at the top, no one to celebrate it with. Only the weight of the world on his shoulders and large footprints to fill.
This time, he doesn't want to walk down that same path. Hell, he doesn't even need to be number one - not really, not anymore. His mind conjures up a memory of Shouto, of a conversation he will never forget. It's… as he said back then. He just wants to be a hero that his children - and his wife - can be proud of. A good husband; a good father - someone that his family deserves, someone who can love, and be loved.
(Touya doesn't have to be driven to villainy, nor Rei to the brink of insanity. When they're born, Fuyumi and Natsuo shouldn't have to grow up feeling neglected and unloved; Shouto shouldn't have to hate an entire half of himself. Enji… doesn't need to see hatred, pain, fear or indifference in their eyes, whenever they look at him.)
Rei comes in for the third time. It's just as well that tomorrow is a Sunday. He helps her slip under the blanket, and she smiles at him, uncertain but true. He hates that he can't remember the last time she's smiled so much in his presence.
(He can't quite bring himself to smile back at her - but if this is real, if there is a tomorrow, he swears that one day, he will.)
Enji lightly rests a leg against Rei's, and she shifts closer to cement the touch.
It's barely anything, but it's much more than he's ever had, than he's ever let either of them have - and so, it's enough. It's enough that she can bear looking at him, that being in the same room as him doesn't cause her to panic. If all of this is just a dying hallucination to earn some semblance of peace… it's enough.
*****
Rei doesn't sleep, even when Enji drifts off, the furrow between his brows smoothing out when he eventually does.
Her heart has finally stopped hammering in her chest, sent into overdrive by a potent mixture of disbelief and hope. She can't shake off the feeling that maybe, she had stepped into an alternate universe one hour ago, when she'd first entered his room to find him screaming.
The thing is, Rei knows her husband. Before… everything that had just happened, she would have been steadfast in her certainty that Todoroki Enji is cold, formal and distant. He doesn't do soft. He doesn't show vulnerability or weakness. He doesn't look at her like he treasures her, giving her kisses on her forehead and wrist that are so sweet they make her heart ache.
With the way he's been recently, she would never have suspected him to have those fears he'd just described. For the last two years, the only emotions she's really seen from him are variations on anger. There's a whole spectrum there that she's familiar with, everything from annoyance to fury. He's never physically hit her, but his words can be cutting, and there are times when she's… scared.
'You would get panic attacks in my presence.'
It hadn't always been like that. Back at the beginning, he'd been aloof and gruff, but still kind. He'd asked about Rei's favourite flower and her pastimes; she'd learnt about his aspirations and his past. They had actually spent time together, doing things that couples usually do - watching the Sakura bloom, ringing in the new year with a kiss. She'd thought she could learn to love him, and for a while… she thinks that she actually did.
But as he grew busier with hero work and Touya came into the picture, all of that had gradually stopped. His temper grew shorter as the years went by, and with it, any hopes of their arranged marriage ever turning out to be anything more.
Then came tonight.
Rei wants this for herself, for her son - this glimpse of what could be that she's seen in the past hour - so much that it hurts.
She doesn't understand it, though. It doesn't make sense. No pro hero is a stranger to nightmares, let alone Enji, whose high-power quirk lends itself to dire situations with unavoidable casualties. Even so, he has never talked about them, has never let her see anything behind his self-erected wall. He's never screamed during one, loud enough to wake both Touya and her.
And then, they'd woken Enji up, and he'd acted even more strangely.
Instead of simply claiming he was fine and then sending them off, he had stared at Rei as if he couldn't believe she was there, then let Touya climb onto his bed and cling to him. There had been unshed tears in his eyes, an unexplainable amalgamation of relief and sorrow, and that had been the confirmation for her that something was wrong. So, she'd tucked Touya back into bed, assuring him she was going to help Enji… and now, here she is.
It all just feels so surreal. She wouldn't be surprised if she woke up in the morning only to find herself in her own bed, all of this turning out to be a dream.
As if he knows the direction her thoughts are going, Enji shifts in his sleep. There's a loss of contact for a moment, and then his chest is there, a very warm and very real pressure against her back. It's… new, but not entirely unfamiliar, and is decidedly comfortable.
That night, Rei lets herself fall asleep with a smile on her face.