Sorry for the late chapter, but at least I managed to get it done before Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. If I don't manage another update until then I also wish you a Happy New Year!

After Nineteen Years

It was still early when Enji finished his morning jog the next day. It was Saturday, November had come and gone, and today was Saturday, the First of December. After a quick shower and breakfast, he took the car to the hospital. It was unusual coming here two days in a row, and Endeavor hoped he wasn't being followed around by some hidden paparazzi waiting for a story. They might make the connection to Rei, if they saw him enter the same hospital too regularly. Just yesterday he had asked them not to further pursue his family, but he didn't really trust that they would listen. Still, he didn't see anybody follow him around and even so, he purposely drove an extra loop around the city.

After he entered the parking lot, he turned the engine off and waited for another few minutes. Finally, he scratched the back of his head, feeling paranoid. Yesterday, when he came back home from his patrol, the paparazzi in front of his house had suddenly vacated the premises. He had seen a single news car and one sole man with his camera asking Endeavor for a statement, but quickly hurrying away as Enji glared at him.

They hadn't come back this morning and now Enji didn't know if he could trust this new peace. He doubted his interview had actually placated their curiosity, never mind their hunger for sensational news. But if he was right, where were they?

He took one last glance down the driveway and up to the hospital, before he left the car and swung the door shut with a little too much force. He was already a bit late. Just a minute or two, Natsuo would still be there, but he could just imagine Natsuo's unimpressed glare that Enji made him wait after requesting this meeting.

After entering the hospital, he first went towards the reception. There was a long line already so early in the morning. Thankfully, Enji spotted his son's telltale white hair in one of the public anterooms. So he changed his direction and went straight towards him.

"There you are," Natsuo started before Enji could get a word out. "I've been waiting for fifteen minutes."

"Then you were twelve minutes early," Enji deadpanned with a glance to the clock. Natsuo didn't seem impressed with his dad's humor. He just glared at him arms crossed over his chest.

"So, what did you want to say?" He had a magazine in his hands with a big picture of the Japanese national soccer team in the front, that he had half closed the moment Enji entered the room. He gave the impression that Enji was preventing him from reading whatever article he had been reading, making it obvious that the boy wanted to keep this conversation as short as possible. Half of the chairs in the room were still empty, but Natsuo had – Enji suspected purposefully – sat himself between a young kid and an old lady.

The kid stared at Enji with narrowed eyes, as if he was thinking very hard if Enji resembled the hero 'Endeavor' enough to ask for an autograph.

"Not here," Enji said, turning at once to leave the room with two long strides so that Natsuo had to hurry to keep up. He could hear the boy curse under his breath, as he reached out for his jacket and quickly followed his father out of the room.

"You wanted to—," he started to complain as he followed his father down the corridor but stopped abruptly when Endeavor opened the door to one of the isolated anterooms for heroes. Natsuo's eyes narrowed a little as he entered the room and looked around.

There were only a few chairs in this room, a low table with a bunch of newspapers and magazines like any other normal anteroom. But in one corner there was a small and comfortable sofa, and between the two windows there was a coffee machine. Natsuo stood in the middle of the room on the carpet, taking everything in. Then he turned back to Enji. "They give you your own waiting-rooms? Must be really nifty to be a hero." He didn't specify whether he was talking about Endeavor specifically or heroes in general.

Enji leveled his son with an unimpressed look. Then he simply shrugged. "We need some privacy for this conversation. I'd rather not talk about this in public."

"What? Worried the press might get wind of it?" Obviously, the words left Natsuo's lips automatically, because the next second he looked as if he wanted to take them back. He huffed angrily, before he sat on one of the simple chairs.

"Talking about the press…," Enji started, "how are you doing? With…" He didn't really know how to end this sentence. Instead he focused on his son for the first time in… well, years probably. The last time they had met in person was during his fake kidnapping. But he couldn't really remember the last time he had really focused his entire attention on Natsuo. Maybe during that family dinner, when Natsuo had screamed at him, only a week before said kidnapping. But had he really focused on Natsuo then? Had he even really heard what the boy had said, or had he been absorbed in his own new idea of 'repenting and atoning for his sins'. So absorbed in fact, that he hadn't even really understood what Natsuo had yelled about to him. And if not during that family dinner, when was the last time he had even talked to Natsuo?

The kid was… really no kid anymore. He'd grown almost to Enji's height. Broad shoulders and chest. He had always been the tallest of his siblings. Physically, he was the most like Enji himself. Touya might have inherited most of his looks and quirk. Shoto was the one who had inherited the perfect combination of him and Rei, but Natsuo… He had Rei's hair and eyes and quirk, mostly, but physically… He was even slowly developing Enji's same jawline. Give him ten more years, Enji assumed, and between all his children Natsuo would look the most like him.

Enji didn't think Natsuo would like to hear that, though.

He looked tired and grumpy. Despite having apparently arrived fifteen minutes ago he looked as if he had just woken up. Not a morning person. Enji couldn't really place the looks and glares he was receiving from him. There was the expected anger and almost hatred. He was used to that. But there was something else. Natsuo seemed shifty, uncomfortable and insecure, worried, and Enji was inclined to say: almost ashamed.

"It's been alright," Natsuo answered forcefully after a while. He pressed the words out as if he didn't want to speak about any of that. "Some paparazzi tried to enter the dormitory, but they got dragged off by security. I think they might have even sued some of them for trespassing." He shrugged. Then he added: "It's annoying."

"I hope it will get less, after…"

"After your little interview? Yeah, very nice of you. Thanks a lot." He sounded sarcastic. "Well, I didn't have any trouble this morning, so maybe you did help."

That was good news, at least, though Enji feared it wasn't permanent just like he feared his own peace wouldn't last either. He was about to say so, when Natsuo suddenly continued:

"So, what did you want to talk about? What happened with mom?"

"Did you talk to somebody after the kidnapping? See somebody?" Enji asked without even acknowledging Natsuo's own question. Rei was fine, Rei could wait. There was more important stuff now. To him, it had really only been a convenient excuse to finally see Natsuo.

Natsuo seemed to now realize the same, because his look of surprise turned to an angry glare. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. But then he huffed annoyed, realizing he was now stuck in this situation if he didn't want to make a scene. Even in this private room, they were still in a hospital, a public space, and neither of them wanted to alert the people around them to their drama.

"No," he muttered and shrugged, "why would I? I was fine, they didn't hurt me." He sounded defensive as he leaned back a little more until Natsuo's shoulders hit the wall.

"I didn't mean…," Enji sighed, "I meant a psychologist. Did you talk to somebody about what happened?" His professional hero-training was quite helpful now. They learned what tips to give or how to give first aid to any civilian that might be involved in a villain incident. This was of course a month late, but he assumed someone would have already talked with Natsuo about this. So, now Enji just relied on this expertise to not sound or feel awkward.

This however only made Natsuo seem more defensive. His arms tightened around his chest. "As I said, I'm fine. What is this about?"

Well, Enji couldn't force his son to talk about what had happened. And in some way, Natsuo was right, he hadn't been injured after all… he hadn't even really been kidnapped.

"Did you see anybody?" Natsuo asked back almost accusatory. When Enji didn't answer, Natsuo just huffed again. "See, so why should I?"

The conversation already made Enji feel tired even though it was still early morning and he had just woken up two hours ago. He sat heavily on one of the chairs that he dragged close enough to Natsuo, that they could sit opposite each other, but not too close, that Natsuo had any right to feel claustrophobic. Still the boy eyed him unhappily.

"I just want-," he started.

"Stop it," Natsuo demanded looking away to the door.

Enji actually stopped for a moment, surprised with Natsuo's tone. He had almost sounded pleading. "Why?" he said finally, because he couldn't really continue if his son was quite literally begging him not to, but he also couldn't just stop. He had waited more thaen a month to finally get this chance.

"Why?!" Natsuo barked back, his voice quickly changing from pleading to aggressive. "You want… Fuck you! Why the fuck did you have to come?" His head snapped back to glare at Enji, leaning forward in a stance that would raise all of Enji's alarms if the other was a villain. But it wasn't a villain, so he remained seated where he was.

"Come…?" he repeated.

"Yeah! I was just fine, really peachy and then you came and had to screw everything up!" Natsuo screamed in his face.

"Back then?" Enji asked, because he was confused about what his son was talking about. Should he not have come? He had thought that had been the plan. "I thought you wanted me to come."

"I was fine! Nothing would have happened if you hadn't come, but you just had to play the hero!" His voice had quieted down a little, still aware of their surroundings, but his glare didn't lose its aggressiveness.

"You didn't want me to come?" Enji asked thoroughly confused.

"No!" Natsuo retorted, "Yes…," he grabbed his hair as if he was himself confused. "I don't fucking know!" He shook his head. "But…" Suddenly he jumped up from his chair, past Enji, toward the door, but Enji grabbed his wrist to hold him there.

"But what?" he demanded.

"Nothing would have happened, okay?" Natsuo hissed. "Nothing would have fucking happened. I knew you wouldn't care, so if you hadn't come… So what? I would have been fine! But then you had to come and…"

"They might have hurt you, still," Enji said. It was the League of Villains, after all. Who knew what they would have done?

"Touya would never hurt me!" Natsuo hissed those words with conviction, but there was insecurity cracking his voice. Broken trust.

Enji realized now, what this was about. "It's not your fault," he told Natsuo. His voice was quiet, but the words clearly pronounced, willing his son to listen. "It's not your fault what happened."

"Yeah, I know," Natsuo responded almost sarcastically trying to rip his wrist free, but Enji held tight.

He didn't know what to do, how to make sure his son listened, so he just repeated his words. "It's not your fault I was injured."

"Is it not?" Natsuo finally turned on him hissing angrily. "Whose fault is it then? I… I faked my own kidnapping! Of course the people who talked me into it couldn't be stand-up citizens, but I was just too stupid to…"

"You didn't know," Enji reminded him, "he's your brother, and she was your girlfriend, right?"

"I should have known," Natsuo said angry with himself, "now that I know… Gods, their faces are on every newspaper, but I never looked into the stupid hero and villain section in the papers." He pulled on his hair, but then he finally sat back down on a different chair hunching in on himself. Enji finally let him go. "You should have told the fucking police. Why didn't you?"

"It would have ruined your life," Enji said, then he looked out of the window, "and I already ruined enough of it, I thought."

There was it again… that angry and annoyed huff. When Enji looked back at the white-haired boy the anger and irritation was back on his face, but he also seemed exhausted again. "Don't…" he said, "just don't…" Enji raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't give me that new and redeemed attitude," he said sarcastically, "I'm 19. 19 fucking years and you didn't give two shits about me. And now all of a sudden… and I should just accept that?"

He was right, Enji knew. Natsuo would have needed him, when he was a child. Now, it was almost…

"It's too late," Natsuo huffed. "I've already cut ties, I've moved out, I… You can't simply walk back into my life, even if…"

"Ah…," Enji hummed finally, because he knew what Natsuo wanted to say. He was 19 years old, and for 19 years, Enji treated him like shit, then suddenly his father came and did one right thing toward him and that almost got him killed. Of course, he was disoriented. At this point, Enji could have pointed out the flaws in his logic. Could have pointed out, how Enji still paid for Natsuo's education and accommodations, could have pointed out that Touya being alive would change everything, could have pointed out, that even with what Natsuo had said, Enji was still his father and shouldn't that be enough reason for Enji to try and be better… But he didn't need to say that, Natsuo knew all that.

"What 'Ah'?" Natsuo hissed irritated. He was a bit aggressive again, but not like a villain, Enji realized. Just a confused teenager.

Enji stood up from his chair. "Natsuo, I…," he hesitated, not knowing how to continue. He really wasn't one for many words. Making grand declarations about how he loved him or would always help him if he were kidnapped, even if it was just fake, or how he'd never stop trying to atone, was not Enji's cup of tea. He was a man of actions, not of words. And it wouldn't sound honest to him. Even less so to Natsuo. He could just say the sappiest thing he could come up with as if he were trying to change Natsuo's mind by applying to the 13-year-old inside of him, who had maybe always wanted to hear those words. But that wouldn't be fair. So, in the end, he changed his mind, closed his mouth, stared to the door and then opened it again to change the topic:

"Your mother asked me for a divorce," he said and raised his hand immediately to stop the questions he knew were already rising in Natsuo's throat, "I agreed. So, it will probably take a while, to get all the paperwork done, but… anyway." He looked away feeling a bit awkward.

Natsuo still stared at him. "You're fine with that?" he asked disbelievingly.

No, Enji wanted to say, he wasn't really fine with that. He had a night to sleep over this new development, and although at first, he had accepted it just fine and even felt a bit of relief afterward, now the very idea saddened him. Couldn't they have made it work? But of course, the very idea was ludicrous. Rei had spent the last ten or so years in the hospital terrified of him. There was nothing to 'make work'. He shrugged with one shoulder.

"I told her everything… including your involvement," he added, "so she probably has a lot of questions. Visiting hours start at nine," – which Natsuo of course knew better than even Enji himself –, "so maybe you could answer some of her questions. Take care."

He was about to leave as he stopped again, turning to him. "You know, about the journalists…," he hesitated again, "and the police, I guess, if you wanted to talk to them…" He gritted his teeth as his words died on his tongue. Then he grabbed for the door handle and almost fled the room, without looking at Natsuo again, although he could feel his wide-eyed stare at his back.

He was a bit disappointed in himself, as he sat back in his car breathing heavily as if he had just fought a powerful adversary. He had wanted to ask about Fuyumi, too, but in the end, he hadn't even mentioned her.

I hope you liked it. There will be a 'I'm Watching!' Chapter Natsuo II after this.