BNHA Fics

I'm Fine, I Think... | Sick/Traumatized Todoroki

A/N: Okay, I know I said I was giving our boy Todo a break after that last chapter... but then I read chapters 202-206 in the manga and HOLY CRAP, it set my little hyperfixated mind completely spinning out and drastically updating my headcanon and well... here we go again. This story belongs "in between the lines" of those chapters. I did recreate some of the battle in order to get inside Shouto's head and spell out what how I imagined he might be continuing to deal with trauma under pressure.

CW: Endeavor's toxic parenting and abuse, mental health problems including disassociation, vomit

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12 years earlier

It had been a difficult day at the Todoroki household. Touya had gotten into a bitter argument with a friend at school and had locked himself in his room as soon as he'd gotten home, and while Rei wanted to go after him and find out what had really happened, she was pulled in several other directions and hadn't gotten a chance. Natsuo was having a hard time with his homework, Enji was ranting about a sidekick he'd had to fire from the agency, and both Fuyumi and Shouto had come down with a bad flu that was going around. Though she was sniffly and feverish, Fuyumi was doing okay, mostly content to sit wrapped in a blanket while eating soup and watching TV, but Rei was worried about Shouto. He'd had a cold or two as a baby, and a fever that had given way to a rash about a year ago, but those had been minor and manageable childhood illnesses.

This time, her youngest was vacillating between hot and cold at unnerving extremes. He'd lost his appetite and had no interest in eating when Rei had warmed up soup for her sick children, and she'd already changed his clothes twice on account of him sweating out the fever. Fearing he would soon get dehydrated, Rei had tried to get him to drink, and he'd taken a little water, but then so quickly gotten chilled that he'd refused to finish it.

Now he was lying with his head in Rei's lap, wrapped up in a blanket that seemed to do little to ward off the chills. Shouto shivered in his sleep, and Rei rested her hand on his back, making sure the blanket was tucked around him tightly.

"Look," said Enji out of the blue, pointing at their sleeping son.

Rei looked back and forth around the room. Nothing seemed to have changed. "What?"

"Look at his right arm," said Enji.

Rei glanced down at the little hand peeking out of the blanket and resting on her leg, then gasped when she saw that it was coated in tiny ice crystals. "Oh!"

"Keep an eye on him," Enji instructed. "It's about time his quirk develops." He sighed. "More ice..."

Rei swallowed, nervous for both her own fate at that of her youngest child. If he turned out how her husband hoped, the child's life was destined to be bound up in Enji's obsession with surpassing All Might. If he didn't, then she could only assume it was a matter of time before she was pregnant with their fifth child. Will nothing deter you from this petty quest? she wondered as she had countless times before.

Once Enji had left the room, Fuyumi looked over curiously at her sleeping little brother. "More ice?" she asked.

"Seems that way," said Rei, craning her neck to try and get a better look. She lifted up the blanket for a moment and saw that the frost was forming all along Shouto's right arm up to where his shoulder laid on her lap. She quickly tucked him in more snugly again, hoping she hadn't let him lose too much warmth.

A little later, when Fuyumi had dozed off and Rei was absorbed in a book, Shouto woke up with a whimper.

"What's the matter?" Rei whispered, hoping not to wake Fuyumi.