"Go Tenko, come on, you got this!" Touya cheered from the bed behind Tenko.

"No, Tenko's going down!" Called Keigo from the other end of the bed. "Rumi's totally got this!"

Both thirteen year old boys were sitting on the bed behind Tenko and Rumi, who were on the floor of Tenko's bedroom. In front of them was the TV showing Heroes Vs Villains, where Rumi and Tenko were playing against each other in a battle, Tenko as the villain and Rumi as the hero.

Touya and Keigo each cheered on his best friend, while Tenko and Rumi each struggled, clicking and clicking buttons. Rumi had her tongue sticking out, and Tenko was almost standing up.

Finally, the screen went dark and a banner slid across it, along with a deep voice. Rumi's character pumped her arms forward in a victory dance in one corner while Tenko's pouted in the other. "Hero wins!"

Tenko dropped his controller and Rumi sprung to her feet with a woop. Keigo jumped up along side her and gave a high five. "Heck yeah, knew you would win, Ru!"

Touya patted Tenko on the shoulder in a mock of comfort while clearly trying to hold back a laugh. "Better luck next time, dude."

Tenko let out a long sigh and hung his head.

"Don't be a sore loser!" Rumi grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "You were really good, I've never taken that long to beat someone before. I can't believe it took us this long to play together."

Tenko opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out as he stared because Rumi was way too friggin close to his face. He felt the red creep up his neck and cover his face.

He stepped back quickly, hoping his face wasn't too flushed. But according to the teasing smirk Touya sent him, it was. Tenko internally groaned.

"Yeah, thanks," he muttered, not meeting anyone's eyes.

No one spoke as they suddenly heard a crash from the living room.

"Come back you villain!" Came the high pitch voice of Izuku.

"No thank you," came a quieter but still playful draw of Shoto. Then there was sounds of ice forming.

"Ack! Shoto, you actually froze my foot! I can't move!"

"That's the point."

"It's coooold!"

"It's ice."

"Hey, Shoto?" Came a new drawl, amused and not so quiet, but not as energetic as Izuku. Hitoshi, of course.

"Yea-"

Then came Hitoshi's snickering. "Freeze the rest of Izuku body. But not his head, he needs to breathe."

"Wha- Hitoshi! Shoto, wait no-! Gah!!"

Then was cackling and Izuku whining about it being cold.

All four of the older kids smiled and smirked at each other.

"Should we go do something? We are technically inc barge of them since neither of my parents are home," Tenko asked, holding back a snicker but also a bit concerned for Izuku getting too cold.

"Probably," Touya muttered.

Nobody moved.

"So, who's next?" Rumi plopped back down in front of the TV.

"You're going down, Ru!" Keigo grabbed the controller from Tenko's hands and plopped down next to her.

"Welp, I'm going to check on the rascals, make sure no one's dead," Tenko sighed, walking over to the door. He looked back at Touya. "You comin? Your little brothers out there too."

Touya huffed but scooted off the bed. "I suppose so. I'd rather not have the rath of your father on my back." He stepped over to the door with Tenko. "Or worse, your mother."

Tenko chuckled as he opened the door and stepped outside. "Definitely not."

They stepped out into the hall and immediately saw the seen out in the living room. Izuku was in a block of ice all the way up to his neck with a red blanket tied to him as a cape. Shoto had some black piece of fabric tied around his eyes like a mask and was wacking Izuku over and over again on the head with an empty paper towel roll. Hitoshi was dying of laughter from where he was wrapped with toilet paper on the couch, likely pretending to be the hostage.

Izuku saw them first and looked to them with pleading eyes as Shoto continued to wack him with the paper towel roll, obviously still under Hitoshi's control.

Touya doubled over laughing, freezing Hitoshi in place and making the boy jump up to look at them with wide eyes.

Tenko smirked at the boy's deer-in-the-headlights expression. "Well, what's going on here?"

"Hitoshi made Shoto freeze me and hit me!" Izuku whined loudly, pouting playfully at Hitoshi.

"Uhhhh," Hitoshi looked between Izuku and Tenko and the laughing Touya and the mind controlled Shoto multiple times before sighing exaggeratedly. "Fine."

A second later, Shoto was blinking owlishly at Izuku, towel roll held still just above Izuku's head.

"Uh," Shoto pulled the towel roll away and blinked at him, then at Izuku. Then he finally seemed to register that Izuku was frozen in a block of ice. "Oh."

"Unfreeze me!" Izuku pleaded.

"Right." Shoto's left arm started steaming and he rested his hand on the ice, as the ice slowly began to steam and melt.

Hitoshi looked down at himself, still firmly wrapped in toilet paper, then up at the two older boys. "Could one of you help me out?"

They both look him up and down, then glance at each other with a smirk. "Nah," Touya says, "You can stay like that for a bit longer."

Hitoshi huffs and slumps.

After a minute, they start to hear loud cheering from the bedroom just before the door burst open and a proud looking Rumi popped out, followed by a defeated Keigo.

"Let me guess," Tenko snickered. "Rumi won? Again?"

"Heck yeah I did!" Rumi cheered. "I am the undefeated champion!"

"Hey, don't be so sure, you haven't played me yet," Touya countered, crossing his arms.

"Well, aren't you confident?"

"Someone needs to put you in your place, Miss Undefeated Champion."

The front door opened then, and Hisashi stepped in, immediately freezing in the doorway, eyebrows rose and mouth slightly open at the sight in front of him.

Hitoshi was still tied up with toilet paper, Izuku wasn't even halfway unfrozen yet, all the little kids were in ridiculous costumes, and the older kids were just standing around watching. Tenko wasn't even certain Hisashi knew there would be other kids at the house.

Hisashi's mouth opened and closed a few times, making him look a bit like a fish, before he finally sighed in resignation and closed the door behind him. "I don't even wanna know."

"Hi Daddy!" Izuku called from where he was currently wiggling the one arm that was free, probably trying to get the feeling back in it.

"Hello, Izuku." The man turned from where he'd hung up his jacket and scanned the block of ice with his son in it. "Do you need help?"

Tenko blinked, trying to figure out how Hisashi would help, when he suddenly remembered that Hisashi was supposed to have fire breath.

Shoto nodded at him seriously. "I don't want to use fire and burn him, but this is incredibly slow."

Hisashi nodded and stepped over, kneeling down. Then he started to blow on the ice, a small flame forming and melting the ice on the other side.

Tenko turned around, opening his mouth to ask if the others wanted to head back to the room, before he realized that Touya and Rumi were already gone.

He looked to Keigo with an eyebrow raised, who blinked at where the others used to be before shrugging with a silly grin and hurrying back towards the bedroom. Tenko sighed with a small smile and followed.

—-

"So," Tenko said from where he was laid back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his lamp lit bedroom. "How've things been?"

Touya was sat on the ground in front of the TV, scrolling through movies and trying to find something for them to watch. He paused.

Keigo and Rumi had left a little while ago, Hitoshi too. But Touya and Shoto were staying the night, since Endeavor was off on a mission for a few days. Izuku and Shoto were off somewhere playing games, and Tenko and Touya had been in his room since dinner.

Touya shrugged, fingering the remote. "Same as always. Dad's been pushing Shoto too hard in training, yells at everyone, hits my mom, ignores me, the usual."

Tenko hummed, watching his friends expression closely. Things had gotten worse in their family recently, he knew. Endeavor had given up on trying to help Touya learn how to resist the burn of his fire and had completely banned him from using his quirk. He'd also basically started ignoring Touya's existence, even more so than Fuyumi and Natsuo. Touya claimed that he wouldn't even look at him anymore, like he was the biggest disappointment in his life.

Meanwhile, Shoto's training had gotten harder since he learned how to direct his ice and fire. From what Touya described, the poor boy was having it rough, Tenko felt so bad for him.

And his mom was apparently straining to keep herself together. Touya said he could tell that Rei Todoroki was losing it, and he was scared of what would happen when she broke.

All in all, their home life was worse then ever, but Tenko still couldn't do anything to help. It made him sick.

"I've been training in secret," Touya suddenly mutters, almost a whisper. "I sneak out at night and train my quirk in the forest."

Tenko sat up and looked at him, eyes wide. "You have?"

He nodded, eyes still locked on the remote in his hands.

There was a pause, and then, "Why?"

Touya's head shot up to look at him. "What?"

Tenko shifted, but kept eye contact. "Why are you so determined to do this? What are you trying to do, even?"

Touya's eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he looked away again, pausing in thought. Tenko waited.

"I want to prove myself," he finally said quietly. "I wanna prove that I'm not useless. That I can still be a hero with my quirk." The last part was quieter then the rest, and a Tenko hardly heard it. "I want to show him he was wrong for giving up on me."

Tenko didn't say anything for a minute, just watched his friend closely. Then, he scooted himself off the bed and sat down next to Touya on the floor, leaning into the other boy slightly in hopes of comforting.

Touya went stiff for a second before relaxing and Tenko couldn't tell if it was forced or not.

"You're still trying for U.A. then?" Tenko asked.

Touya snorted. "Duh."

They were both quiet for a minute as Tenko thought. "Are you sure you want to be a hero?"

Now Touya really stiffened and Tenko worried he'd made a mistake. He was about to open his mouth to try and take it back when Touya spoke tensely.

"Of course. I need to prove to my father that I can do it, that I'm not weak or useless."

Tenko paused thoughtfully. "No one else thinks you're weak or useless," he started, and Touya tensed more, if that was possible. "Only your father does, and you hate him. He's the only one you're trying to prove anything to. Why do you care what he thinks?"

There was a pause, and it didn't seem like Touya was gonna say anything any time soon, so Tenko continued. "By being a hero you'd be doing exactly what he wanted you to do. You'd be proving that he controls your life, and you'd be becoming just like him. And you'd only hurt yourself to get there. Does that really seem worth it to you?"

There was a long moment of silence, and Tenko just waited, staring at the TV. Touya didn't move, didn't speak, so Tenko picked up the remote that Touya had dropped at some point and started to shuffle through movies.

Finally the clicked on a movie, and settled against Toiya's side as he watched.

And if the movie just so happened to be Hisashi's favorite where the main characters were villains that weren't really evil, working to get revenge on the "good guys" who hurt them, then that was just a coincidence.

It was a week later when, on a Sunday morning just after Tenko had woke up, he got a call from Touya.

"Mm, why are you calling me so early? It's the weekend," he grumbled into the phone, still partially asleep.

"H- hey," came Touya's voice on the other end, and suddenly Tenko was wide awake and stiff in his bed. Because he had never before heard Touya stutter, much less speak so quietly.

"Touya? What's wrong?"

A sniff. "Uh, I could- um, I could use some help, if you're not busy."

A minute later, Tenko was sliding into the kitchen where Hisashi was at the table and Inko was cooking on the stove. He must've looked as bad as he felt, because Hisashi straightened as soon as he saw him.

"Tenko? What's wrong, are you-"

"I need a ride to the hospital."

Hisashi blinked. "What-"

"Now."