Wedding Bells

After the enemy lines

Two days ago...
The hospital.

For most of his life, Shoto Todoroki had thought that it was his father who deserved a good beating and being sent to the hospital for a long time instead of his mother, who wouldn't have suffered a mental breakdown and scarred her child with boiling water if it wasn't for the years of domestic violence she went through. Now it had actually happened and the son of the Hero Number One was meeting a bandaged and bruised Endeavor in his room, he was unsure on what he should think or say. The view of the once abusive patriarch of the Todoroki's looking like an angry, beaten and injured bastard wasn't as satisfying as he used to picture in his head when he was a child. For some stupid reason, that made him feel slightly guilty, and what was worse, his expression towards his forced to rest father wasn't as naturally cold as it used to be. 

"Stop looking at me like that, will you?" Endeavor's bitterly complained, after a long minute of silence. The last thing he needed was his youngest son feeling sorry for him. "I know I look like crap."

"Yeah, you can say that again" Todoroki corroborated all natural, remembering who was the man he had come to see. "I won't stay long; we must keep working and find Shigaraki. Truth to be told, we don't have many threads to pull right now..."

Endeavor sighed. His son was already a grown up hero any father should be proud of, and even if he never got rid of the stigma of being a bad parent, he would never be the same man who made his own flesh and blood pay for the frustration of being an eternal second place in his work again.

"Hawks was here when I woke up. He told me everything about the mess the day end up being, but... I was happy to hear neither your mother, your siblings... or you, were injured" he solemnly said, as believable as he could sound in the ears of his still resentful son. 

Todoroki slightly opened his mouth to answer, but no words came to it, so he looked at this fidgeting fingers, trying to figure out what to say.

"He told me what happened to Yaoyorozu" Endeavor continued. "How is she doing?"

"Momo is fine too" Todoroki said, looking through the window. If there was something he particularly avoided talking with his father as much as he could, was his relationship with her. "I'll go see her again when we are done talking."

"We need to talk" Endeavor nodded. Despite the disappointing way he earned the place of Hero Number One after All Might's retirement, he had fulfilled his duty as such for the last eight years the best he could and tried to guide his son and the next generation. However, eight years wouldn't go easy on an already long veteran hero, and Endeavor had been suffering the effects of age and physical wear to that date. He still was able to do his job and unleash all his hellfire on the streets to keep most villains at bay, but the devastating result of the League's last movement, and more specifically, his clean loss at the hands of a new villain, had brought some harsh truth to the table. "By now you must already know what happened. I don't who was that villain or what he has to do with the League, but what concerns us is that I lost..."

"No" Todoroki replied. He was not in the mood to deal with his progenitor's pride. "What concerns us is that the League of Villains has returned stronger than ever, Eri, Mashirao, Shinsho and Professor Shield have disappeared, the citizens are more than justifiably affraid, some of my friends have been injured, and most heroes don't even know where to start..."

"I know" Endeavor knew he couldn't waste their time arguing. "But I need you to listen up."

He knew his son well enough to know that frustration, anger, doubt and resent were loudly speaking behind that mysterious and cold gaze fangirls were usually crazy about, and he didn't seem to be looking forward to hear what he had to say. But Todoroki was smart and a smart person wouldn't complain about receiving some advice in the present situation, so he would stay in the room and listen.