Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m nervous.”

It was half confession and half realization, breathless. Toshinori glanced over at him with a stunned, cautious smile that blanked Aizawa’s mind for a moment, and all he could think about was how honest and open the man was. There was a world of emotion to be read in Toshinori’s face, or what was visible over the crest of his red woolen scarf as they strode down the sidewalk to the hospital. Then Aizawa actually heard what he’d said.

“You should be. She’s very intimidating,” he deadpanned, recovering somewhat with his version of a joke. 

He should have known better: Toshinori looked genuinely concerned, even panicked, and Aizawa realized for the thousandth time that it was fruitless to tease the retired hero. Not when he cared so deeply about things, and about this thing in particular – but that just made the homeroom teacher shrink on the inside.

Damnit. Now he was nervous, too.

“Why?” he asked, maybe just to screw himself. Toshinori gave an awkward laugh, adjusting the cap over his flyaway hair as they ducked inside the main doors of the facility.

“Well … because anyone that means so much to you, I want to make a good first impression. Good impressions are particularly difficult with young children, I think,” he said while waving pleasantly to the building attendant, because he was Toshinori.

“She isn’t –” Aizawa began, then just pursed his lips and looked away, watching the windows become lesser in number as they walked deeper into the huge building.

Who knew how it had happened, but Eri commanded a part of him, and Toshinori unfortunately knew him too well to let the blatant lie rest for even a moment.

“Shouta, the sheer fact that you braved a children’s department store is highly suspicious. The fact that you specifically banned anyone from coming with you to said department store would hold up as evidence in a court of law.”

Aizawa winced, caught.

He normally took the path of least resistance with those who shared his life – uncaring if they stayed or went, so long as it made them happy, and moving at a glacial enough pace that everyone had plenty of time to decide whether or not to accompany him – but he practically hissed everyone away and absconded that afternoon, returning with a colorful jumper set that he was equally secretive about.

He never absconded. He definitely didn't have a clue what children wore these days, if ever. What the hell was he thinking?

“Shit. I think it’s ugly,” he realized, maybe to convince himself to take it back, as if he hadn’t already ditched the receipt in a rush as if to hide the growing evidence of Eri’s place in his life from himself. He glanced down at the shiny, stiff, enormous department store bag that he was holding far too close to his side. This was a mistake.

“I’m positive it’s ugly,” Toshinori said brightly, beaming when Aizawa instantly glared up at him. “I saw the ruffles and I saw the cats. I saw the green and the pink and the orange."

“Yeah?” Aizawa grumbled dourly, as if daring him to continue.

“And I’m positive she’s going to look …” Toshinori trailed off dramatically, and Aizawa practically bared his teeth beneath his capture weapon. Then the retired hero looked down, under his cornsilk lashes, his smile too warm a thing to exist in winter.

“Loved.”

Aizawa snorted, neck instantly flashing hot.

Loved? How did someone look loved? Then, the answer.

Toshinori squeezed his hand and leaned over – over over – until their noses almost touched. Had they been alone, it would have been a peck on the nose or the lips. The sheer proximity made Aizawa stiffen automatically, but Toshinori just smiled blindingly, blue-black eyes glinting. Like he knew.

Yet another reminder that Toshinori could see into him, but most importantly that he liked what he saw there. Loved it, even, no matter how that thought twisted the mind.

“I’m excited for the chance,” Toshinori said quietly, carefully, like he was talking about her and Aizawa and literally everything that could happen from that moment forward. He drew back, apparently satisfied with his outrageous mawkishness, and they kept walking.

Aizawa snorted again, far too late, but when Toshinori offered to hold the shiny department store bag for him while Aizawa dialed the room number and signed them into Eri’s hospital wing, he released the thing into his care. Then he let his lover take it the rest of the way, one finger hooked into Toshinori’s belt loop as his only claim on the proceedings as he tried his best to ignore the growing meter of his tired heart.

Aizawa Shouta watched with a mysterious tightness in his chest as the ruffled offering was well received, even if Eri looked to him with cautious eyes and waited for a nod before approaching the bag or the towering man holding it. Toshinori, to his credit, put it down on the floor, in neutral space, and stepped away with a minuscule bow. She went up on her tiptoes to peer inside the bag and patted, palm open, at the explosion of tissue paper and rigorously bouncy fabric as if it was all a foreign concept to her. Then, a gasp, high and sweet.

“Kitties!”

But she wasn’t the only one gifted, that day.

To see Toshinori take to one knee, smiling and speaking softly after the initial unwrapping, was something else. The older hero didn’t reach for her like he had any claim to her because of her size or her age, but complimented her braids and her bravery and the evidence of her budding artistic skills that lined the stark hospital unit, asking her what her favorite games were, and suddenly Aizawa was willing to brave a dozen pink-frosted department stores to get more. More of this, more of them. Something more than two people, more than three, and yet one single thing.

And when the nurses tried to convince him to take back the perfectly hideous jumper on grounds of hospital uniform and not the disgusted looks on their faces, he shoved it into their arms with a ghastly grin and walked out, reminding them that he would be back on Friday for their weekly ice cream. 

The door shut behind them and, this time, Aizawa didn’t regret the pat on the back or the surreptitious kiss on the cheek.

Chapter Text

It was morning. Saturday morning, which was Aizawa's sacred late morning, but the way he woke to Toshinori slipping into his nest of covers on cat's feet, fingers immediately tangling in his loose hair, he was smiling even before he realized it was way, way before 10 am.

There was, of course, the requisite moment of Toshinori whispering gleefully that he felt like a high schooler sneaking around like this and Aizawa snorted that he should say that louder so the actual high school students down the dorm halls can hear him, but also don’t give them any ideas. Then they were gloriously making out, working the warm sheets into a knot and grasping at each other’s baggy sleeping clothes to get to the skin underneath. Aizawa quickly squirmed out of his pants and kicked them off to join the tangle of blankets around their legs, desperate to be on Toshinori, morning breath and all. He immediately bit back a groan of relief as their bodies fit together and connected, even if he had to whisper at Toshinori to shut up and stop giggling like an idiot.

Aizawa rolled them both over and sat back atop the ex-Symbol of Peace, meaning to peel off his own oversized sleeping shirt and get down to business, but found himself staring. For a moment, he simply enjoyed the sight and sensation of the retired hero half-naked and splayed beneath him and painted in bars of sunlight. Aizawa felt a warm, bleary grin steal his face to see Toshinori's wild spray of yellow hair on the pillows, his skin brown against the white sheets and the look on his face, simultaneously tender and hungry and absolutely pinned on him.

“Missed this,” he mumbled, without entirely meaning to.

“I’ve missed you,” Toshinori replied in low tones, smoothing his big warm hands up his sides. Aizawa shivered sharply, the hair on his bare legs raising to rapturous attention.

“Not for long.”

Brows high, he looped his thumbs underneath his T-shirt with a rakish grin right as the bedroom door opened behind him.

“Aiza-san?”

It was a small voice. The tiniest voice in a two mile radius and definitely on the school roster, in fact, and both of them froze down to their bones. Aizawa dropped the half-hiked shirt.

“Eri.”

It barely made it out of his mouth. He looked back, frozen atop his boyfriend's prone and shirtless body. The little girl had her head down and was rubbing her fist across her eyes, pale hair like sheep's wool strung messily across her face. The realization that she hadn’t actually seen anything occurred simultaneously with Aizawa yanking the sheets up across his legs and back and stuffing a pillow over Toshinori's upturned face.

It wasn’t the best idea, considering the man was one for two on the expected number of lungs, but desperate times called for desperate measures. To his credit, Toshinori didn’t make a sound except for a quiet (and quickly muffled) gasp and went completely flat beneath him as if trying to sink into the futon. Hiding, despite his enormous fucking feet sticking out just past a pile of dirty laundry and Aizawa had never been so acutely grateful for his slobbish habits.

For a second, they just sat there, Aizawa's entire body cold with shock before he remembered to ask.

“Nightmare, Eri?”

“No,” she mumbled, painfully slow. “It’s morning.”

Morning-mare? Could you not have nightmares in the morning? Aizawa's mind raced in a stupid circle before he understood.

It was just morning. And she was awake. So she was here, and with impeccably terrible timing.

“Where is Yagi-san?” Eri yawned enormously and finally raised her fluffy head, blinking sleepily at him. “He’s not on the couch. I wanted him to make tea.”

Yagi-san slept on the couch whenever he stayed over after movie nights, or so their pretty story went. Aizawa bit back a grimace. Stupid of them, to try to have a moment for themselves.

“He’s ... washing up for breakfast,” he lied through his teeth, sounding desperate even to himself.

He was shit at lying, no matter how civilian the circumstances. Toshinori snorted underneath the pillow, sounding like he got the damn thing stuck up his nose and Eri immediately perked up. No, 'perked up' wasn't the word. The underground hero hated the way she looked around, bare feet tense against the floor, automatically searching the corners of the room with wide eyes.

“What was that?”

“My stomach. I’m hungry,” Aizawa blurted out, then took one more look at the precious rumpled thing in the doorway and regained his mental footing as quickly as he could. For her sake. Hell, for all their sakes. He cleared his throat.

“It’s time for breakfast. Why don’t you go start the electric kettle like we learned yesterday, and pick out the tea you want this morning? If you ask Yagi-san politely, he could teach you how he makes it. When he gets out of the bathroom, that is.”

He sounded almost in control. Almost. Toshinori, meanwhile, was gleefully losing his shit underneath the pillow and therefore eroding whatever chance they had of getting Eri out of the room without traumatizing her further. Aizawa really, really wanted to hit him, but that also wouldn't be setting a good example for their young charge of what healthy friendships looked like.

After she learned the word about four years too late for any normal kid's life, Eri referred to Yagi-san as his best friend. Hizashi was raucously offended for a split second before deciding it was the most hilarious thing in the world and pestered him all day as to why they didn’t do the kinds of best friend things that he and 'Yagi-san' did. Aizawa had to threaten to fuck him (in lurid tones and detail) in order to get him to shut up, but he was still expecting one of those cheesy split heart necklaces to show up on his desk any day and would know exactly who to kick in the shins when it did.

“Okay. That ... sounds fun.”

She perked up, for real this time, and went up on her tiny toes as if to prove it. A minuscule bit of him uncramped at the sight and the simple relief of having a plan. Fun was good.

“Good. Let’s do that.”

Aizawa gave her a nod and she smiled at him shyly, retreating a step or two back into the doorway and hiding in her hair and he mentally noted that it was probably time to braid her up again before she went back to the school.

“Do you think ...”

“Yes?” he prompted automatically, clipped, then bit his cheek. It was too goddamn early to be doing all of this at once. To make up for his tone, Aizawa made himself smile encouragingly at her and wait without expectation. Finally, after consulting the floor and the embroidered hem of her nightshirt, she whispered:

“Do you think he can make tamagoyagi too?”

Aizawa tried to tell himself it was their stressful and precarious situation, or even valid concern over the number of eggs currently in his possession, that provoked the disgruntled, pricked feeling and not the fact that he was terrible at cooking and Toshinori was not. Also, that it was not tamagoyagi but tamagoyaki but she resisted correction on that one thing so intently that Aizawa was beginning to think it was her version of a pun.

Tamagoyagi: tamagoyaki made by Yagi-san. Perfect sense. Of course. Cute enough to turn the stomach, even.

“We’ll ask,” Aizawa said, then adding when her uncertain look lingered, “together.”

Eri smiled at him again and he tried to remember how fucking rare they were. How, weeks ago, she said she didn't remember how. So he made sure to smile back, even if it felt weird.

“I’ll be out shortly. Close the door behind you, please.”

She did, good as she was, and in the sudden, blessed quiet Aizawa was almost reluctant to un-smother his stupid boyfriend. He did. Of course he did.

“Oh my stars,” was all Toshinori said once excavated, wheezing.

“Calm down, you’re going to start coughing,” Aizawa whisper-hissed, rapidly dismounting to try to prop him up to prevent it, but Toshinori just shrugged him off with a wave of his hand, rolling back and forth on the futon with his long straight nose crinkled in glee. Aizawa glared down at him and got even more flustered when the retired hero's bare shoulders started shaking with silent laughter.

“I panicked,” Aizawa said angrily, smacking him with the pillow, which only made Toshinori laugh harder. Then he slumped forward and sighed roughly, realizing they were still half tangled in each other and in no state to continue anything they’d started so hopefully that morning. Aizawa put his head in his hand and closed his eyes.

“Goddamnit.”

It went unspoken: We were so close.

“Maybe,” Toshinori huffed, clearly high from oxygen deprivation, “maybe we should lock her out like we, oh, like we do with Hime.”

Even though Aizawa knew he was joking, he was rattled, and he snapped:

“You know there’s no locking any door while she’s here.”

“I know. I know, my love.”

A warm hand slid over his back and Toshinori's voice was soft, bracing, and Aizawa let out a shaky sigh and made himself come down to where he was, on the floor. He knew the look Toshinori was giving him. It was The Look, the one that said his lover cherished him, his heart, and Aizawa just couldn't look directly at it right then. It meant that Toshinori understood the most important thing about having Eri here: that she couldn't ever be trapped again.

So if they both knew it, why did he have to look Toshinori in the face?

“Why do kids wake up so fucking early,” he whispered instead, jabbing his fingertips into the bridge of his nose and aggressively kneading.

“You’re red,” Toshinori gushed, apparently completely over the fact they’d almost gotten caught with their pants down by a six year old. A six year old Aizawa was tentatively easing into custody over weekends when the school itself couldn’t ostensibly care for her, while not quite knowing what the end goal was. Which was terrifying.

“Of course I am,” he snorted, then threw the covers off suddenly enough that Toshinori yelped. He rose to his feet and snapped his fingers as he went for his clothes drawer.

“Come on. Up. You’re on tea duty. Tea and tamagoyaki. After she asks. Nicely,” Aizawa muttered over his shoulder before adding, far surlier than he intended, “Act surprised.”

“Gladly,” Toshinori said humbly, freeing himself from the bed in his careful, stretching way. The retired hero took his sweet time, considering they hadn't really closed their charade yet, but Aizawa realized it was purposeful when he wandered too close in his rushed preparation and Toshinori caught him by the pants and pulled him down, onto the pile of covers. Ignoring the instant grunt, Toshinori pressed a kiss to his temple and they just sat there. Breathing.

“Sorry,” Aizawa said out of the blue, glancing over. “I know you wanted to.”

“I would hope you did, too,” Toshinori replied appraisingly, giving him a sidelong playful look and Aizawa snorted, very sore with how much he did. He leaned into his boyfriend with sudden feeling, nosing into Toshinori's craggy bare shoulder and that warm skin smell before it got covered up with stale clothes.

One thing Aizawa was going to miss about living with a child in any capacity: nakedness. He had been a very naked person up until that moment in his life and had even taken to leaving sweatpants in odd corners of the teacher's dorm just to remind himself to stay clothed for a goddamn second. It was difficult.

Beside him, Toshinori just smiled at him and kissed him again, this time on the top of his head.

“We'll have plenty more mornings with just the two of us,” he murmured against his hair and Aizawa almost automatically shut his eyes from the tickle of his voice and the intense feeling of safety that came from having the older man's long fingers trickling down his back in lazy circles. The bars of sunlight had shifted and fell across his bare arms, warming him to the bone.

“Why would I regret a chance to fall that much more in love with you, seeing you care for her as you do?”

Aizawa was violently red and remained red until the rice finished cooking and they were all seated. After a quiet, kind conversation about the value of knocking before entering a room, Eri and Yagi-san teamed up and fretfully (Eri), evilly (Toshinori) made him wait until his tea was cooled before drinking it, because he was so very red and taking hot liquids just wasn't healthy in such a state. The wink his boyfriend snuck in while their faerie-like charge noisily pretended to drop her spoon (and then dipped underneath the table to clumsily feed Himawari some omelet that she definitely shouldn't have) was like fifteen cups of boiling hot tea and Aizawa was struck with the dire need to leave the room immediately or stay there forever, between them.

The decision was frighteningly easy to make.

Chapter Text

Having a child, in whatever capacity Aizawa Shouta had Eri, was a constant surprise.

Sometimes, it was good surprises (macaroni art), other times, bad (night terrors). On bad days, it was exhausting, and on good days it was also exhausting, but Aizawa metaphorically kept his arms open as the tiny survivor's mental bandages unravelled in the new space allotted to her. Above all, he never tugged or pushed to speed up the process of her healing or revealing, waiting for her to process at her own pace. Though she didn't know it yet, she had a new hero tribe around her who would support her through her re-becoming no matter what, and he distantly prided himself on that. He could offer her that much, after all she had endured.

In keeping with exhausting surprises, however, Aizawa would have never dreamed that Toshinori would be the one on staff who struggled most to become closer to Eri, or that a blanket would be the thing that finally closed the gap between them.

It was an odd, stepwise process to even realize that there was a problem. Eri deemed the retired hero acceptable from a distance, more than friendly enough to make her tamagoyaki or share a table, but touch was out of the question. As soon as Toshinori reached toward her, even if it was for a cup above her head, she fled. There were a few options or explanations to be had – maybe he was too tall, maybe too bony or had a strange gaze – but the result was the same. Very quickly, Toshinori stopped reaching.

There was nothing to be done. As deeply as Toshinori felt the sideways rejection, they both knew better than to push the issue: the affections of children so young were subject to whims beyond understanding but Eri in particular had very little reason to trust. Touch was intimacy and the last bastion of autonomy. If they wanted to continue to mend whatever sense of security she had and make UA a home instead of a holding cell, she had to make her own decisions regarding the people she let in.

While the harried homeroom teacher still wasn't entirely sure why she had taken to him of all people, her other decisions so far had been good ones. Deku and Mirio were shining examples of growing heroes and young men, possessed of responsibility and an effusive kindness that drew Eri naturally out of her shell. Aizawa was beyond amused to see her hop in place when she spotted them from a distance, tiny hands fitfully balling up and flexing like she wanted to run to them but didn't know which part of her she wanted to move first.

Maybe, knowing how similar Toshinori was to her two favorite students, it was all the more discouraging to watch her repeatedly shy away from him, or the resigned look on his lover's face as he watched their tiny charge silently pack up and relocate to some other activity across the room when he settled on the couch, where minutes earlier she had been contentedly coloring.

A hand on the shoulder could only do so much to assuage his boyfriend's battered heart and exhaustion alone was probably the only thing keeping the precarious situation from becoming truly frustrating in a very small, very cohabited apartment. The sheer degree to which Toshinori wanted to know her was impossible to forget, either, considering his habit of bleeding his disappointed emotions in every sigh and longing look, but it was what it was. The most they could do was set the stage and loudly audition Toshinori's good traits, demonstrating again and again that he was a kind man, and to be trusted.

Then, a miracle. A breakthrough. A blanket.

For a miracle, it started an awfully lot like a mistake. Aizawa had deposited her on the couch one night, half-insane from deadline stress, and beelined to the kitchen to make coffee before she could wake. An absent-minded constellation of a hot bedtime bath, a faulty kettle and mistaken identity resulted in Eri, still damp and cocooned in a minky blanket, snuggling against Toshinori's leg on the couch with a tiny sigh.

The two heroes froze as if a bomb had been triggered. Toshinori looked downright terrified to have a small girl sleeping half on his lap and Aizawa promptly over-poured his scalding coffee all over the counter while frantically budgeting the potential upset in moving her or letting her remain only to discover that she wasn't with who she thought she was.

It ended in a detente. Aizawa carefully joined them on the couch and the two instructors sat and graded above her without exchanging a word, forcefully projecting normalcy. When Eri finally stirred awake around 9, she blinked up at Toshinori, pulled the blanket tighter around her face, snuffled, and fell back asleep. The following collective sigh could have overturned a small building and from then on, it was somehow, surprisingly okay.

Over a matter of days, the plush blanket became Yagi's blanket: a symbol or shorthand hint that Eri wanted to be picked up and hugged or cuddled as Toshinori was so talented at doing. It was a handy substitute for verbal communication for a shy soul that struggled with voicing wants, and Aizawa was glad she was finding ways to safely express boundaries. There were few things more encouraging than seeing her run toward Toshinori with the blanket over her head like a cape, smiling up at him sunnily. The sight of her bouncing on the tips of her toes as soon as Toshinori bent to scoop her up, it nearly gave Aizawa a heart attack. Or indigestion. Or confetti overload.

Mostly, he was relieved and glad that their tribe had gotten a little larger and that Toshinori could take over when things got hellishly uncomfortable for him. His emotional resources were about as limited as they came and children so young, in a surprise to absolutely no one, weren't very rational. As sharp as Eri was, there came a time when explanations didn't work anymore and she just needed to scream and cry and get whatever-it-was out. When that happened, she could do it in Toshinori's arms as he drew circles on her bent back and wiped away cottony hair from a tear-stained face, walking in endless circles around their living room and murmuring in the sweetest echo of an era past:

I'm here. I'm here. It's okay. Everything is okay, Eri-chan.

Again, heart attack. Indigestion. Death by confetti. All of the above and more and how.

It seemed like a no-lose scenario, which Aizawa should have found supremely suspicious from the start. And then, one day, the perfect math of it cracked when he was tidying up around the house in a half-hearted search for his headphones. He picked the fuzzy pink blanket up from the couch, not thinking about it, and Eri leapt up from the floor and rushed him. The jumbo-size box of crayons dumped cacophonously over the hard wood, Eri herself little more than a trail of white hair and balled fists.

“No!” she yelled, the crackle of her horn cutting the air as she grabbed the other end of the blanket and pulled with all her strength.

It happened so quickly that Aizawa's first instinct was to yank it away, but he couldn't. His fingers closed on it then painstakingly opened and she bundled the fabric against her chest and glared at him over the tangle of minky fuzz.

Then she stormed off to her room, tears in her eyes, and Aizawa took the rest of the afternoon to deal with the fact that he didn't have a fucking clue what had just happened.

“It’s easy enough to understand, I suppose,” Toshinori mused that night once they were alone and properly adult again. The remnants of a healthy dinner were on the coffee table and Aizawa gave up trying to think grading thoughts with a full belly and a warm boyfriend behind him, tempting him with his quasi-horizontal recline.

“Then explain it to me,” Aizawa said with a guttural sigh, leaning back against Toshinori. He nestled in and long arms promptly encircled him, pulling him back against his shoulder. It had been a challenge, determining a reliable method of cuddling such a bony man, but heroes turned bad situations around by trade, didn't they?

“Possessive behavior in children her age is normal,” came Toshinori's deep voice at his temple, pulling him back from his silly thoughts. As if he needed more help drifting off, Aizawa felt fingers smoothing gently down his bare arms and raising every hair along the way.

“They’re trying to figure out boundaries. What is theirs, versus others... or, ah, so I’ve read.”

“You’ve been reading,” Aizawa mumbled, maybe just to buy time, because something about it just didn't sit right with him.

“Of course!” Toshinori peered around and caught his eye, smiling encouragingly. “I want to help you with her. Not that I think you’re doing anything wrong! Not that I would ...”

Aizawa gave him a faint, tremendously tired smile and nudged back into him, and Toshinori relented with a sigh. As if to assure one another of what they knew – that each had only the best intentions in mind and that verbal communication was fucking hard after a day of endless lecture – the two heroes tangled together just a little tighter and sat in quiet for a moment. One hand drifting up over his shoulder to knead at the thin fabric of Toshinori's shirt, Aizawa stared at Himawari sleeping at their feet, his mind wandering.

“She hasn’t had a single thing in her life,” he said suddenly, his chest constricting with the brutal truth of it, as well as the challenge laid out before them.

“It’s no wonder she worries that anyone, even you, might want to take things away,” Toshinori agreed after a moment, lips brushing against his neck. “It’s compartmentalization, or symbolism of belonging. Safety. She’s trying to figure out what belongs to her versus what is her. Any disruption to that stability must be ... distressing.”

Aizawa squirmingly turned and just looked at his boyfriend until Toshinori nervously cleared his throat, dark eyes darting away.

“Yes, Aizawa-kun?”

“You've been reading, huh?”

“And thinking!” he protested, brow furrowing. Any offense instantly melted into a chuckle when Aizawa flicked his long, straight nose and leaned backward for a quick kiss, secretly warmed with admiration for the man who embodied Plus Ultra, even in matters of child rearing.

Not that they were actually rearing anybody. (Not officially, anyway.)

In any case, Toshinori's bookish reasoning made a kind of sense, so Aizawa took it as a working theory and simply moved forward. Possessiveness was something he could understand and, for the gamut of PTSD-related symptoms Eri could and did have, being violently protective of a blanket and the bond it represented was low on his totem pole of concerns.

Until, that is, a very frustrating day and a spilled cup of juice.

It wasn't anybody's fault so much as it was just fucking everywhere. It was bright red, on the floor and on the blanket and on his backpack where 2-A's papers were. More importantly, his patience was nowhere and they were ramping up for Finals and Toshinori was on some kind of trip for UA and he hadn't gotten fucked in three weeks and–

“I have to clean it,” he explained to her, feeling the dangerous coolness in his words even as he knew he shouldn’t be standing there and holding the sopping, dirty blanket as she tugged fruitlessly at it, baring her teeth and struggling not to slip on the continents of sugary red mess on the floor.

“Let go! Give it back! You can’t!”

“Why this? Why the blanket?” he finally snapped, committing and getting down on his knees and putting a hand over hers where it was crimped into the blanket and yanking relentlessly.

Surprisingly, she didn’t even flinch. A small victory in the face of what was ratcheting up into a major meltdown, tears bubbling up and threatening to spill over her round cheeks.

“It’s Yagi's!” she gurgled in a rage, hiccuping.

“Yagi is very good at sharing. Do you think he wouldn’t want to share the blanket?” he asked, forcing himself to sound as patient as possible despite feeling like he could develop a fire-breathing Quirk any second with the sheer amount of frustration scalding his insides.

No answer, just more growling. She was staring him down like someone three times her size, her knuckles white on the stained blanket. Horn and Quirk definitely activating.

Fuck. Different approach.

“Is there something important about the blanket? Did Yagi ask you to protect it for him?”

“If anything happens to Yagi's blanket,” she grit out, then, in an apparent panic at the thought, savagely threw her entire weight into trying to wrest the blanket from his grip again.

Her bare foot caught a puddle of the damned juice and she instantly slipped, tiny body slapping flat onto the laminate in her frilly pajamas. Aizawa's heart leapt stupidly at the little tumble but pounded on even harder when she hauled herself to her knees and went straight back to yanking at the blanket like her life depended on it, tears pouring down her cheeks and catching in her pale downy lashes.

“What will happen, Eri?” he asked as gently as he could, knowing better than to reach for her even with every heroic instinct in him pushing to save someone in clear need. Someone hurt, someone bleeding fear – a kind of fear he'd been wrong about from the very beginning.

“He won’t have anything to protect him!” she sobbed out, abruptly dissolving onto the floor. Her head fell forward with an enormous shuddering howl of tears held in too long, coughing with the force of it all, but still her hands remained sunk into the blanket.

“You c-can’t take it away,” she moaned, hiccuping. “He won’t hug me anymore. He’s not like you, he's not a hero! He knows it’s not safe! He knows. He knows.”

It was hard to say exactly what happened inside Aizawa at that moment, and that realization. Maybe crumble was the word. Maybe immolate.

His grip fell away. Eri jolted backwards onto her heels, finally winning the week-long tug of war. She slumped, curling around the stained mess, and cried without restraint.

It all lined up, and in horrible clarity. Eri hadn't shied away from Toshinori because she was afraid of him. She was afraid of hurting him.

The blanket was the only way they interacted, a happenstance barrier that Eri thought was the only reason or way he had to touch her – and here he was, threatening to wash and endanger the only way she could have a relationship with Toshinori. The only thing that made her safe or palatable to him.

“Eri-chan,” was all he could say, unable to keep his voice from trembling as he reached for her.

She whimpered but didn't jerk away, her prize still safe against her chest, and Aizawa gently, carefully pulled her closer over the spills and the mess and the misunderstanding. Throat thick with guilt or simple shock, he soothed her in whatever way he could, wiping her thick hair from her damp cheeks until her eyes glinted warily up at him over the rise of the blanket. He took a deep breath.

“Trust me. You’re not going to hurt Yagi.”

“He’s not like you,” she repeated, then ducked into the blanket again, shoving his hands away from her face and clutching her head, her hair. “I’m scared. I'm scared!”

He's not like you?

A year ago he was the strongest man in the world, Aizawa wanted to say, but Eri's horn was channeling her pure distress and beginning to light, so he focused on Erasing and holding space and silence for her until she could calm down.

“Let’s talk to Yagi about this. Alright?” he said when she was just a pile of stained pajamas on the floor. “Right now, we're going to get cleaned up and give breakfast another go. The blanket is staying right here. I'm not going to touch it. Is that okay?”

A tiny pause, then a tiny nod. Her clammy, juice-slathered hand fumbled for his neck when he picked her up and such sloppy contact had never been such a relief. He hoped Himawari wouldn't be dumb enough to roll around in the disaster that was their kitchen floor, but he also didn't give a damn about anything but the shivering little girl against his chest.

There was something to be said about the utter irony of finding himself, of all people, in this particular situation, but it just made him miss Toshinori. The man miraculously brought out his better traits, most of which felt like memories or hallucinations at this point. Aizawa closed his eyes and allowed himself to sigh out some of the bitter panic in his chest, cheek against Eri's damp hair.

“Yagi-san will be back on Friday. When he comes, why don’t you talk to him? You can tell him what you’re afraid of and why you think the blanket matters.”

She didn't have an answer at that moment and he didn't expect one, but Friday came, and Aizawa found himself hovering just inside the dorm apartment kitchen as Eri stood in front of Toshinori on the couch, the mile-high man bending courteously to capture the little girl's every halting word. Watching his boyfriend's face as she explained the blanket, in bits and pieces and compulsive fright, was almost as bad as the juice incident itself and Aizawa didn't bother to disguise how he was frozen and watching. Watching her, him, them.

Then, covering his face with his hand for only a moment, Toshinori dropped to his knee and opened his arms for her. She immediately stepped back and hung there for an instant, then rushed to him, already sobbing.

The evening ended and took with it any lingering misunderstandings. Eri cried herself to sleep on Toshinori's unblanketed shoulder, hiccuping wetly and stirring only to sniff and curl up tighter in his arms. All of them were so completely exhausted that even after she properly knocked out, he and Toshinori just sat on the couch and stared at each other for what felt like an hour.

“My god. What a day,” was Toshinori's sterling contribution to the train wreck that was their pseudo-parental existence.

In his defense, he had just gotten off of a six hour flight and been shuttled directly into toddler heartbreak, but Aizawa had maxed out his capacity for considerate thought three breakdowns ago. And, true to his word, he hadn't touched the blanket, which meant he'd been stepping around it for the last two days and finding even more reasons not to go in the kitchen than usual.

“What a fucking fortnight,” Aizawa rasped, staring at him balefully. Toshinori's mouth dropped open, as if to scold him for the profanity, but he had zero time for it.

“I can't do this. I almost died. There's no food in the fridge. She wouldn't eat breakfast. I couldn't sleep. It's Finals and there's still a blanket under the table,” he hissed, then realized how he sounded. Unhinged. Murderous. Yeah, that sounded about right. Aizawa's head fell forward into his hand, his entire body going painfully slack.

“You aren't allowed to go on long trips anymore,” he muttered, an apt summary of his life.

“Then I'm glad we agree, my love,” Toshinori said with a sigh, somehow managing to smile as he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Eri's hair, right next to her little stubby horn. Distantly, though stung by hunger and stress and emptied by sleepless nights and the basic conundrum of children, Aizawa knew in that moment that everything would be okay. Why?

His hero was here, of course.

Chapter Text

School was a noisy place. That, Aizawa knew intimately. There were lockers slamming, computers, announcements, Quirks, and excited young teens all competing to be heard over one another. Most of the day, especially during passing period, he could hardly hear himself think.

Screams, however, were designed to cut through all kinds of rabble. Especially shrill little girl screams.

Aizawa scarcely heard his clipboard clatter to the floor as he took off, plowing through a hallway of frozen students toward the third floor, and Eri's room. His mind tore through possibilities and plans of attack as his footsteps echoed in the stairwell, his capture weapon already torqued tightly around his fists and his heart pounding in his chest. He flung her door open just as another scream split the air – this time joined by a drawling, nasal sound he had heard every day for most of his life, half of it through a shitty radio speaker.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaah, right, that's it! Yeah, yeah!” Hizashi crowed where he crouched on the floor, slapping at his knees and then raising his hands to the ceiling. “Make noise! Shake it out, be crazy! It's okay to be loud, everyone wants to hear you be you, Eri-chan!”

“AIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE,” came the shriek again, her round face flushed with the effort of such a huge sound. Twin emotions of exasperation and relief hit Aizawa hard, followed by a roundhouse kick of amusement as she screwed up her face and screamed so loudly she fell back onto a nearby beanbag chair with a cloudy fluff of her hair, only to have Hizashi clap noisily at the display.

Aizawa laughed. It was just a snort into his capture weapon, but it made both of them turn around and Eri's face lit up once she saw him in the doorway.

“Aizawa-san!” she gasped, instantly wrestling herself up from the shapeless maw of the beanbag chair and running over to him.

Latching onto the pantleg of his jumpsuit, UA's favorite charge started yammering about everything they'd done that day, all the games they had played and who came to visit and how fun it was to yell, then ran back and forth from her craft table to show him pictures she'd drawn since that morning. Panic mode aborted, Aizawa sedately took a heel next to Mic, nodding and making interested sounds where appropriate.

“You're supposed to be in class,” Aizawa said dryly when Eri got distracted choosing which one of her dolls she wanted to introduce to them, regarding Hizashi from the corner of his eye with one brow raised. Mic waved his hands, grimacing.

“Ex-cuuuuuuse me, sensei! I very responsibly scheduled an English study period for Finals today. To give the kids a break, y'know,” he said with a proud cackle, as both of them knew who was getting a break in this equation. Aizawa harrumphed and watched her run around and start playing with her toys. Hizashi followed his gaze and smoothly propped an elbow on the homeroom teacher's shoulder and leaned in, a faint smile on his face.

“Yeah, we're still working on the difference between a shout and a scream, but she's doing super well. And man, she's got a set of pipes on her! I might have to get her on my show, do some sound effects or something. Get her more comfortable with the idea of talking to people, or just being heard.”

“So you are good for something,” Aizawa said archly, quietly, watching her run around and hoot. Mic snorted loudly.

“You try too hard not to love me, Eraser. It’s absolutely transparent,” he sighed, resettling his green shades on his nose with a flourishing flick of his fingers. “Can't wait for you to hear her funky English phrases, by the by.”

Before Aizawa could retort that Eri was a developing child, not a parrot or a pet to be sprinkled with English phrases, the door slammed open.

“Eri-chan, are you --”

All eyes in the room turned to see half of 2-A bursting through the door, Midoriya in the lead and Shoji just behind. Of course. Shoji would have heard her halfway across campus, found Midoriya and led the others in a charge. For a moment, everyone just stared silently.

“O-oh,” Midoriya offered awkwardly when it became clear there was no emergency other than Hizashi's ego and the dreadful cuteness of the little girl staring up at them. He sunk into the human huddle behind him with a wilting expression. “Sorry, we thought we heard ...”

“Deku!” Eri squeaked excitedly, throwing her hands up. The boy gave a faint, overwhelmed wave. Aizawa felt a little obliquely proud of the entire situation before he realized it involved three people and half a class crammed into a space meant for the life of one small child, with everyone on tenterhooks.

“You heard what you thought,” he said tiredly, rising to his feet and waving his hand as if to dispel the misunderstanding. “The response was appropriate for the evidence. Thank you for checking. Now, go. The semester review for Hero Studies is in five minutes.”

“Well, you have to be there, too, Aizawa-sensei!” came a cheeky voice from the back of the group. Ashido.

“And tradition mandates that all of you be in your seats by the time Yagi-sensei and I arrive,” Aizawa countered sharply, which caused every student to disappear so quickly it nearly left a draft in the room. With the coast clear and Eri back to playing at her table, Aizawa bent his head and rubbed his eyes, swallowing a groan.

“Tradition?” Hizashi repeated in exaggerated disgust as he rose, sticking his tongue out. “Man, you're getting old and stuffy.”

“I'm tired and it works,” he muttered, trying to remember where he'd dropped his clipboard at the start of all this. It had his notes for the Hero Studies review. Then, more to interrupt his best friend's train of thought from anymore unpleasant revelations regarding his very clear and present oldness:

“If you're this good with kids, you should get one of your own, Zashi.”

It worked. Mic instantly sobered, waving his hands in front of himself with a pinched expression.

“My dude, kids are fun, but I know myself better than that. I can hardly get up and put my pants on in the morning and call in a study period the day of, I don't even wanna think about dealing with a tiny person day in and day out. Playing with your little one is good and fine, thanks.”

“She's not mine,” he muttered, determinedly keeping his eyes on her and not Mic, who was giving him eyes.

“Suuuuuuure man,” he drawled, then, bending again, he clapped his hands to get Eri's attention.

“Hey Eri-chan, do you remember the English word we learned the other day? The word for oto-san?”

“Papa!” she exclaimed after a moment of intense thought, like she was surprised she remembered, and Aizawa felt his face twist horribly to mirror the stupid, blissful, terrified squirming in his gut. Mic promptly doubled in laughter that shook the walls and Aizawa bared his teeth.

“You're ...”

– an asshole, of course, but with Eri's wide eyes looking between them, he bit his tongue.

“... a very rude man, Yamada-san.”

“No, he's not! He's nice and my friend,” Eri corrected him, downy brow furrowed severely up at him. Like, while he had been a good friend and confidant up until this moment, she suddenly and violently doubted his judgment and moral character. Aizawa hated to admit how much that look affected him.

“Hey! She's right!”

Hizashi could hardly speak through his evil cackles. Maybe to avoid getting discreetly stomped in the ankle, he promptly went over and scooped Eri up, giving his best friend a wink as they sauntered back.

“Now come on, kiddo, school day's almost over and Lunch Rush is gonna close the mess hall, but I think I know where we can score some pudding.”

“Pudding!” she chirped, then waved to Aizawa. “Only three more sleeps until the weekend, Aizawa-san!”

“Three more sleeps,” he agreed quietly, waving back. Weekends meant slow mornings with Himawari and Yagi-san. That same squirming sensation nearly took his breath away and he had to admit, whether or not Eri was his, he was undoubtedly hers. Then, sternly, before he could forget:

“One pudding, Mic.”

“I don't think you understand the metrics of pudding, my guy! We'll see what we can manage, right Eri-chan?”

That was his only answer as the door closed, leaving him alone and nominally flustered in a little girl's room. Before his eyes could stray to all the pictures – so many of them featuring a stark, foreboding black scribble in the otherwise rainbow palate of the young, usually holding stick-hands with a long-haired scribble as little hearts or butterflies or butterhearts wiggled around them – Aizawa checked his phone and immediately sighed, squeezing his dry eyes shut.

Shit. He was late for his own class. Responsible adult, indeed.

Chapter Text

Nightmares were a thing.

Night terrors, more specifically. It wasn't surprising, considering the trouble they had initially getting her to sleep: once she realized that throwing fits was indeed an option, Eri resisted bedtime like she knew what was waiting for her on the other side of consciousness, and she was usually right. Every other night, it was the same.

The first few transitions from dead sleep to stingingly awake – scrambling out of bed as a high-pitched scream pierced the dark of the tiny dorm apartment, often kicking each other on the way – were rough but one thing Aizawa would say was that the two of them were specifically trained for high-panic scenarios and immediate response. Considering his turbulent (read: eternally shitty) relationship with sleep, it wasn't surprising that Toshinori beat him to the rescue more often than not. Before Aizawa could even surrender to the logic of who was better suited for such work, the older man routinely pressed him back down into the covers with a rough whisper and then ran off, bare feet slapping the wood.

Limbs refusing to move but brain refusing to shut back down again after the miserable spike of adrenaline, Aizawa would lie half-awake in the dark until he heard a door close. He counted Toshinori's footsteps back – it was about fourteen, theirs was a small place – and grunt when he slid back into bed, his version of asking for a report with a mouth that also refused to cooperate.

“She's alright,” Toshinori would murmur, or some version of. Aizawa then leaned into the warm hand and the rubbing motion on his arm and they would tangle together again and drift off. And it was alright.

Then, one night, it was not alright at all.

Aizawa hadn't even tried to get up, but heard Eri sobbing relentlessly above Toshinori's hushed baritone as he tried to comfort her. Then rustling, water running and more crying. It took a long time, which made him nervous and thus made him more awake, grabbing his phone for the clock like he never did and should never do if he had any intention of getting back to sleep.

4:13 A.M. An overall awful time. He sat up in their nest of covers when he heard that heartbreaking weeping sound getting louder atop Toshinori's fourteen footsteps.

“There, just a little accident,” Toshinori was murmuring as he toed open the door, Eri little more than a damp bundle of white locks and cringing limbs against his chest in the dark, still shaking with the aftershocks of sobs. She wasn't wearing what he'd put her to bed in and for a minute that didn't make a bit of sense to him.

“It happens, it's okay. Shhh. Everything is alright, see?”

The poor girl smelled strongly of peach soap and a hint of something recognizably sour and her bare skin was chill and tacky to the touch, but it didn't matter: Aizawa's arms were already out by the time Toshinori bent amid fantastic cracking of his knees. He reached out and briefly squeezed his boyfriend's damp arm in some kind of acknowledgement or thanks as he bundled Eri against his shoulder. She immediately smashed her face into his t-shirt to drown her renewed sobs and his dry eyes closed from the sheer agony radiating from her tiny body, his chest tightening viscerally in response. He automatically started rocking her, stroking her tangled hair with one eye on her stubby horn if it started to crackle.

“I'll get the bedding,” Toshinori whispered above him, pausing briefly to plant a kiss on his head and Aizawa nearly groaned out of sheer dumb disbelief, struck again that he could not fucking do this without him.

He would thank him later. With a medal. Do all his grading. It didn't matter, he would do it. Aizawa watched balefully from behind his own tangled hair as the door closed and tried to listen for Toshinori clanking around and cleaning up, as if it would help.

It must have been exhausting, to cry so much. Eri went from shaking to hiccuping, and hiccuping to whimper-snoring, passed out cold against his shoulder. By then, his mediocre comforting had degraded into twitches of his hand as he nearly passed out around her, only saved by Toshinori intervening: he manually flattened them both out onto the futon and placed Eri in the crook of his arm with a wry, tired chuckle, bringing the floral smell of detergent into the dark bedroom with him.

Quirk or no, the man was a goddamn hero of heroes and Eri's futon was already air drying on the balcony. It probably needed a wash, anyway. Like nothing had ever happened.

Aizawa didn't get to communicate any of that before sleep instantly overtook him, Eri latched onto his side like a barnacle. They slept late and needed it, the morning doubt and leftover shame eased by tamagoyaki and cartoons. It was okay to ask for help, the next conversation went: she wasn't and would never be bothering them, if she did.

This was a safe place. They were a safe place, and if Aizawa were any less exhausted he would have been proud, or just satisfied, to see Eri munching contentedly on crackers and staring at the TV like a normal kid just hours after being so radically terrified by the shadows in her own head. He knew how it was, and that knowledge only made him all the more determined to help her work through it however he could.

And it did work, little by little. They liberally added nightlights and stopped TV and loud noises an hour before bed. They talked about what helped her feel safe and what didn't and what they could do to close the gap.

Over time, the nightmares slowed down, but, as often happened with children, one conundrum simply replaced another. A month after the first accident, it was as if Eri didn't have a bed of her own at all.

It wasn't as if she were faking nightmares, no, but the standards for sleeping with them dropped so abruptly that something as trivial as luring Toshinori out into the kitchen to help her with a glass of water turned into both of them coming back to bed.

Toshinori was zero help. Less than zero. Every time Eri pushed open their door in the small hours of the morning and even began to whine, he was already reaching for her, voice husky with sleep and the kind of genuine care that made Aizawa's heart stutter even in a dead sleep. It was adorable and it was a definite problem.

“This can't keep on,” he groaned as soon as the rustling stopped and her high, snuffling breathing evened out. It was Sunday night, the third night of the pseudo-parenting weekend, and coincidentally their third sleepover. Funny, how that worked.

He didn't have to open his eyes to know that she was curled between them, snug as a bug, and that Toshinori was probably still tickling her back in that way that put her to sleep instantly ... not that she needed the help anymore. Yes, that was amazing, but there were still a thousand things to say about proper emotional development, independence, co-dependence, and not jerking out of a dead sleep worried that he'd rolled over on a small child. Their small child, more and more.

(Also the fact that he should be getting some of those tickles, as he was the stressed-out adult with a job and insomnia and not one but two bleeding hearts to protect and care for, but he was too surly to ask.)

“Can't it?” Toshinori's voice came from beside him, painfully soft. “Not the nightmares, obviously, but ...”

Aizawa cracked open an eye.

Knowing and seeing were two different things, and the sight of the retired hero propped up on his elbow, smoothing over Eri's back with a gigantic hand and smiling in the dim, rosy light of the dawn filtering through the shades behind them and into his spectacularly mussed yellow hair, well … it didn't bear arguing, even if he'd had any words to do so. Grunting, Aizawa turned and rustled a little deeper into the covers, Eri's tiny feet testing and flexing briefly against his back, and slept on.

One more night couldn't hurt.

Chapter Text

“Yagi-san, are you sleeping with your eyes open?”

Toshinori startled, pulling his book higher in front of him as if caught, then exhaled. The two of them had been sitting on the couch together, not quite waiting for Aizawa to return from errands but certainly not doing much else, and the sunlight from the window slanted in and painted lush yellow bars over everything. It caught Eri's light, fluffy hair just so where she sat at his feet dressing and undressing her dolls, and his mind had run away with him as a result.

“Not at all!” he assured her, though it would be a spectacular Quirk to have in city hall meetings. He smiled, and tucked the little joke away for when Aizawa arrived inevitably grumpy from errands. “I was just thinking, with your pale hair and your bright eyes … you're like a little bunny!”

“A bunny?” Eri repeated, tilting her head. “Like the one Koda has?”

“Yes, but you're very special, like the ones that visit every autumn from the moon,” Toshinori said with a low laugh, putting his book aside and pulling up a picture of a white rabbit with pearly pink eyes on his phone. His fledgling educators mind flew, already preparing and ordering what facts he knew of albinism as she crawled up beside him.

“See? A perfectly white bunny. Very pretty, just like you.”

Perching primly on her knees, Eri craned over his arm to peer at the picture mistrustfully, frowning. Then she reached forward and grabbed hold of his flyaway bangs, pulling them upright with a gleeful grin.

“Now who looks like a bunny! Eeee!”

“Hm? I don't know, who?” Toshinori asked, deeply concerned, and the frown was back.

“These, these!” she cried, tugging hard enough that the retired hero winced and bowed his head, laughing as he reached for her tiny hands and not-so-tiny yanking.

“Okay, okay, we're just a couple of bunnies,” he relented, sputtering, and Eri seemed to agree. She ended the day with her hair in pigtails as high as he could tie them, and bounced everywhere and even ate two raw carrots that Aizawa brought back from the store. Toshinori was very proud.

There were things one could learn from rabbits, after all.

“She's obviously a cat,” Aizawa said, in the quiet kitchen over dishes, maybe half an hour after Toshinori recounted the amusing exchange to him. It had been long enough, at least, that he'd gotten properly lost in his book and he had to blink up at his lover and remember what they'd been talking about. Eri, per usual.

It was always Eri, he thought, or the class. Their life was small, now, and Toshinori found himself absolutely besotted with its intimate scope after shouldering the entire country for years.

“She turns in circles before she sleeps,” Aizawa continued, bowing his head to try and shrug his loose hair out of his face without resorting to his wet hands. “And sleeps forever, but only if she has a human pillow.”

“So do you. Are we really arguing about this, Shouta?” Toshinori asked indulgently, laying down his book and crossing his arms as he watched Shouta struggle with the dishes. He had lost a bet, and as much as Toshinori enjoyed tidying up and doing dishes, it was worth it to see him fumble in the hot water and pay his penance.

Well. The G-rated half of his penance, that is.

“Not arguing,” Aizawa muttered, though the high set of his shoulders looked unnecessarily defensive. He poked at the dish soap for a minute, frowning. “She likes cats, anyway. It makes sense.”

“Are you saying she's not allowed to be a bunny?” Toshinori asked with gravitas, sparse brows high, then straightened with a huge grin when his fellow teacher made a vague sound and scrubbed a little harder at the mug he routinely failed to wash after drinking coffee from. “Shouta, you are legitimately flustered about this!”

“You're legitimately a jackass sometimes,” Aizawa said without an ounce of heat, tossing the mug back in the sink and then curling his lip when the dirty water splashed into his face. He grimaced. “People think you're just a simpering old man, a trophy boyfriend who cooks all day. They don't know what I have to live with.”

“A mean old man who makes you do the dishes?” Toshinori said, rising and walking to the sink. He twined his long arms around Aizawa's waist, leaning in and nosing behind his ear. Aizawa shuddered at the contact and rustled closer, keeping just his fingertips in the water so he could claim compliance to their terms, and Toshinori pinched his side.

“Keep calling me old. We'll see what happens, hm?”

“Can we just cut to the fun part of the punishment?” his lover grumbled, sagging piteously into him. “I'm tired. This blows.”

“For all of your devious, nuanced ways of punishing the children, you,” he said between noisy, obnoxious kisses to his bare neck, “conveniently forget that this is supposed to be unpleasant for you, not just pleasant for me.”

Aizawa hated being kissed that way, a parody of the real thing, but it was a mark of his desperation to be free of the situation that he leaned into them, making a severely unhappy rumbling noise.

“I learned my lesson.”

“Which was?” Toshinori prompted, ceasing his kisses, brows high again. Aizawa glanced aside and grunted.

“I forget.”

“Finish the dishes and maybe it'll give you time to remember, my love. You know where I'll be,” he offered and drew away, but not before he dealt Aizawa's ass a firm smack with the flat of his hand. Aizawa immediately growled, short and reedy, and Toshinori left to the bedroom feeling very pleased with himself and not a little bit eager for him to finish the dishes.

 The next day, walking Eri home from his own Sunday errands (they traded off), they made a detour to a local corner stop and just so happened to find some charming plastic bunny hair clips. Even if Eri hadn't frozen in place and pointed at them, eyes glittering, Toshinori's heart was thoroughly stolen and it was probably the fastest purchase he had ever made. She bounced hectically in place in front of the counter until he handed the package to her and she handed it right back, demanding that he put them in her hair, there, now. All of them.

He did, much to the amusement of the very understanding cashier, but it wasn't until they returned to the apartment and Toshinori saw Aizawa staring at the overwhelming storm of pastel bunny accoutrement with narrowed eyes that he realized he'd accidentally started a war.

The very next day, a visit to Eri's room between classes had her showing off brand new shoes: adorable little black Mary Janes with sleeping kitty faces on the front and a stitched tail curling around the back of each shoe. There were even pink paws engraved on the soles and she was very excited.

(“They were having a sale,” Aizawa said when Toshinori found him making coffee in the staffroom, undeniably smug. How could someone stir coffee so very smugly? Toshinori retreated without his tea, mind already turning.)

It was his duty to pack snacks, so it was a day or two in before Aizawa noticed the pale blue bunny-themed lunchbox, even though she carried it with her everywhere and showed all of 2-A. Midoriya, in particular, was a fan, and praised the durability of the aluminum casing, and by the end of the day, the lunchbox bore all of the students' signatures. No idea why, but she slept with it that night.

(“Her old one fell in the mud,” he lied earnestly, and pretended he didn't hear Aizawa snort as he left the room. Smiling, he continued chopping vegetables: carrots, for tomorrow's snack.)

The next day, Toshinori opened the door after his class and Eri hopped into his vision with a loud, proud meow, hands raised high to display black mittens with little pink paws stitched on the palms. The price-tag was still attached.

(“Aizawa-kun,” he protested that night, “it's not even autumn.” The fiery look in his eye and borderline insane grin said his boyfriend did not care one fucking bit, and Eri wouldn't take them off the whole next day. Curiously, Aizawa was cheerful enough to thoroughly unnerve his whole class the same day, and even gave them an opportunity for extra credit. They were too terrified to take it.)

Thursday, there was a present waiting for Eri on her craft table at the school: bunny headphones. She screamed.

(“It's compatible with her tablet and wireless,” Aizawa grumbled as he looked over the torn-open box, as if annoyed by the utility of it more than the white bunny silhouettes on the chunky headphones, stylish enough that even Present Mic would have approved. Indeed, approve he did, howling in admiration when she showed them off with a heavy dose of air-guitar, and then yelped when Aizawa smacked him in the side and retreated with a betrayed glare. Mic looked to Toshinori, who shrugged and tried not to smile quite as evilly as he wanted to.)

Thankfully, the end of the week was also the end of the war. The two instructors were sitting on their couch, a perfectly normal distance apart, when Eri emerged from her room. It was pitiful instinct for both of them to look up, to see who had won and what she had chosen to be, but that day the answer was not so clear.

Toshinori traded a spooked glance with Aizawa before he realized he probably shouldn't, seeing as they were feuding – and the object of their feud was currently skipping around the living room wearing every bit of everything she had accrued in the past week, kitty mittens raised high, hair hanging lopsided from the chubby bunny clips. She had on her charmingly hideous kitten obebe and was proudly toting her blue bunny lunch box, which according to the awful rattling, now probably held her art supplies.

Perfectly content, Eri hummed loudly to herself as she bopped and bounced, completely unaware of her caretakers' growing consternation.

“Dearest, what are you ...” Toshinori began, concerned that she could be hot in the mittens, and also wasn't supposed to be wearing shoes in the house.

“Eri,” Aizawa called, unnecessarily unhappy, and she turned to look at them with a huge grin, once more raising her paws to the ceiling.

“Look!”

They were looking. She twirled in place. Toshinori resisted the urge to glance at his boyfriend again and swallowed.

“Yes, Eri-chan?”

“I'm a bunkitty!” she exclaimed, paws out, as though it were obvious.

It's quite possible that both of their jaws dropped at the same time. She put her hands on her hips, chin high.

“I've been reading,” she announced, a phrase she had surely picked up from Toshinori, who pinkened instantly and coughed into his hand. “And I like both, but for different reasons. Bunnies and kitties both have good parts. Bunnies have super strong legs and can hop and kick, but kitties can scratch. Bunnies can run and kitties can climb whole trees! Bunnies can hear everything, ever, and kitties can see in the dark! So, I'm a bunkitty! I'm both!”

Their approval, apparently, was not needed or desired: her announcement complete and identity established, Eri twirled once more for her own gratification and began to run joyously around the living room before hopping upon her stash of books in the corner, pawing messily through an open book with her kitty mittens.

It took a moment, but Toshinori was the one to clear his throat.

“Those, uh, shoes ...” he said timidly, gesturing to Eri's tiny feet where they kicked lazily in the air. “I hadn't really looked at them. They're very cute. Good taste.”

“Those clips are good. Sturdy enough to hold her hair up, anyway,” Aizawa grumbled, and they sat next to each other in silence. Awkward silence, which was very uncommon for them at this stage in their courtship, and a few things fell into perspective as a result.

“We've been a bit silly, haven't we?” Toshinori ventured, poking his fingers together, only for Aizawa to grab his hands and press a kiss over them, looking uncharacteristically contrite.

“Yeah, well,” he said, more sigh than words.

The silence returned, though not nearly as awkward as before, their hands still linked together across their laps. When Eri asked permission to use her new headphones and listen to her music, they both answered in tandem, and Toshinori felt himself relax for the first time in a very silly, very unnecessary week. He squeezed Aizawa's hand. He wasn't very good at feuding and had no wish to repeat the experience: he and Aizawa were a team, and here was where he felt most comfortable, gently linked to him while their charge hummed, loudly and off-key, to the music in her headphones atop her pile of books.

He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. He should have known she would read up on cats and rabbits, with all this fuss. They always encouraged her to seek information from many different sources before making a decision, if possible, and for a minute Toshinori felt a little proud of himself, and a good deal proud of her.

“I love her,” Aizawa said suddenly, breaking his reverie. The statement, low and gruff and short, made Toshinori look over at his boyfriend almost uncomprehendingly for a multitude of reasons.

Aizawa did not use that word. He may surrender it, he may offer it when he knew there was no other option, but he didn't just bring it into play with no coaxing. It was enough to strike him silent, until Toshinori realized he needed to say something back.

“I know you do,” he said gently, shifting his grip and rubbing his thumb across Aizawa's scarred knuckles. It was his turn to press a kiss to his hand, but Aizawa's attention was elsewhere. The homeroom teacher shifted uncomfortably in place as he watched Eri, sprawled in a book-lover's paradise with her feet swinging in the air and her bunny headphones on, resplendent in her pink kitty jumper. Happy, most of all.

He loved her enough to do such silly things for her, Toshinori realized with a dawning smile. To get wrapped up in her, that is, and that alone was a kind of revelation for a man who prided himself on minimalist logic.

“It makes me panic, a little. When I think about it, I mean,” Aizawa murmured, glancing over at him and then down, at the floor. “I try not to think about it.”

“I think that's okay. It's overwhelming for me, too,” Toshinori agreed earnestly, still stroking his knuckles. “We're in new territory. What matters is that we're in this together, for her. Us … and the entirety of UA.”

He chuckled at the thought, knowing it was truth. Every one of them would overthrow a country for her. They were never alone, in this.

“It's gonna be okay,” Aizawa said dourly, leaning into him for the first time in a week. He sighed. “This is a lesson. It's our job to give her options, not to choose for her.”

“Cats or bunnies or, er, bunkitties,” Toshinori agreed with a lopsided smile, gladly reaching out and wrapping Aizawa against his front. He felt the last parts of his heart relax as their warm bodies matched up again, arms locked around the hero's muscled chest, his nose against his boyfriend's temple. “She's perfect.”

They sat like that together on the couch for the next hour, drowsing and reflecting on their unexpected gift and her unexpected lessons, and it was a mark of their complete adoration that when she came barreling at them and hopped right into Aizawa's gut with an ear-splitting meow, she was still perfect.

Grounded from headphones for the rest of the night, but perfect.

Chapter Text

“What are you doing, Aizawa-sensei?”

Aizawa looked over at the tiny voice, mildly perturbed at both the closeness of it and the interruption.

Eri had been peacefully clattering around with a new set of building toys for most of the afternoon. The kid had so many toys it was becoming a space problem and the rainbow landmass of amusement had expanded to almost swallow the modest TV stand. There should have been plenty to amuse her until her teenage years, but no.

Instead, she was standing next to him where he knelt at their low table, swaying back and forth on her bare feet and clutching her enormous gingham bunny plush, courtesy of Snipe and in honor of No Reason At All. Aizawa blinked and fiddled with the pen in his hand, clicking it in and out a few times.

“Making a list,” he answered, pushing his glasses up his nose and closing his aching eyes until his train of thought decided to get the fuck back on the tracks. Those tracks split into several different lines of work and spanned all the way to Finals of next semester, so it took him a minute to find his spot again.

“What are you making a list of?” She dared to crane over, to take a peek, and he automatically leaned away to give her space and reward the bit of forwardness. Her fluffy pale locks reeked of strawberry and he briefly crinkled his nose and took a breath. Through his mouth.

“It's a to-do list. I have two jobs, a hero and a teacher, and it can get confusing. Sometimes, I need to remind myself what needs to be done.”

“There's a lot,” she sighed after a moment, flopping down next to him on the floor with a great fluff of her red jumper.

Aizawa agreed. He felt his mouth twitch at the very adult disappointment in her tone, too tired to do much more than reach over and pat her on the head. She leaned into the touch, something she clearly picked up from Himawari, and then went as far as to grab and hold his hand in place when he made to pull away. The feeling of her tiny hands fisted around his finger and thumb, holding on, was enough to let the smile win over his exhaustion, which was … intense.

“It's nothing you need to worry about,” Aizawa said, a little softer, scrubbing his thumb through her thick hair and continuing to scribble (and think) one-handed.

Field trips. Internships. It was never-ending, but this was such an important year for his class. (His class? After all they had managed, armed with nothing but their wits and natural talent and terrible luck, did he even have a right to claim them anymore?) So he had lists, and lists of lists besides. Was it really too early to start reaching out to the more specialized pro agencies? Some of them were so slow to respond, which he could understand, but Asui's success with Selkie's mentorship was a robust case-study in why these connections were so important to fitting unique pros where they would do the most good ...

“It's so much,” Eri insisted, and Aizawa made a sound of agreement, determined scribble never wavering as he listed out all of the agencies who had declined to host students over the years, as well as the pros and cons of badgering them to so do this year.

Beside him, as he wrote and thought and jumped months ahead, Eri deflated in slow-motion until her cheek was mashed against the coffee table, his hand still pinned on her head and scratching absently.

“But what if you never finish?” she asked the table, mournful.

“I will.”

Aizawa realized she was staring up at him from her despondent slouch, and painfully unsatisfied with his answer from the looks of things. He gave her what he thought was a comforting pat on the back and checked his phone ... just for the time. Not at all to see when Toshinori would be home and he would have backup.

That was, of course, a lie, but it was also foolish to go into a prolonged stakeout without backup. Especially one unsuited to your natural talents.

He tried, he did, but Toshinori was just so much better at responding to this never-ending barrage of questions than he was. Deep down, Aizawa worried that he might be depriving Eri of something or sending her the wrong signals with his uncharitable way of being and talking. Wasn't it established that he hated interviews? The fundamentally introverted hero was quickly learning that actual exchange of information wasn't the point of conversations with young people, and right now he didn't have the space of mind to be anything but logical and efficient.

When would his Symbol of Peace and Quiet be back?

Aizawa checked his phone and did the math. An hour? He could take an hour of constant questions.

“This isn't a list for today. This is for the whole year,” he explained, with no change to Eri's forlorn expression. She sighed noisily. He didn't blame her.

Sorry kid. We're both learning, here.

“You won't forget dinner?”

She was learning how to whine properly, for instance. She was good at it.

“Yagi-san will cook dinner,” Aizawa answered, then winced as he heard his own tone – very, very easily interpreted as short. Short and unhappy.

Eri was anxious because their routine was being interrupted, he reminded himself. That was normal. Even he got pissed whenever his lesson plans got jumbled.

Refocus. Redirect. Reassure.

Aizawa made himself stop writing and look at her. She looked right back at him, shrinking a little under his direct attention in a way that made his heart sting distantly. Eyes on her had never been a good thing, before.

“Are you hungry, Eri-chan?”

“No,” she whispered into her bunny, wide carmine eyes pinned on him. The intensity with which she was watching his expression, his reaction to her, made his stomach turn as he wondered once again what he was teaching her with every exchange like this.

“Okay,” he said stupidly, and stared. Was he making a decent, open, nice expression? Fuck it, did his face even move that way? He swallowed. “That's fine.”

You are not a burden, Aizawa thought as loudly and sternly as he could, holding her gaze and gradually turning back to the table. He tried, but he couldn't really pick up his list again. There was too much noise in his head and the room was too quiet.

“Can I help you with your list?” Eri asked after a moment, and he heard the quiet pout in her voice.

No, he almost said, because he couldn't see how a (albeit very willing) 6-year-old could know what steps were necessary to update the grading software. He also knew that, while true, that fact wasn't necessary or helpful. Instead, Aizawa took a deep, grounding breath and scooted himself to face her, putting his pen and his glasses down and giving her his full attention for a moment, hands braced on his knees.

“It would help me,” he began carefully, weighing every word, “if I knew you were enjoying your day. I know it's difficult to leave someone alone to do something big, but not all help is direct. It gives me the energy I need to see you having fun. Okay?”

He smiled (not too big) and gave her a very firm thumbs-up: something he had picked up from “Yagi-san”, who was the expert in encouraging the kids. Maybe he still had some technique to perfect, however, because their young charge didn't hop to her feet with a mirroring gesture like she did with his boyfriend. Instead, Eri pushed herself to her feet with terrible slowness and hugged her bunny plush under her chin.

“Okay,” she mumbled, radiating surrender from her horn to her tiny curled toes. “Yes, sir.”

“Hey. You don't have to call me that,” he mumbled right back, catching her elbow with the tips of his fingers as she made to turn. She froze and those wide eyes were on him again: seeing, absorbing, learning. “It's formal. You can relax here, Eri. It's your space. It's okay.”

She nodded, as if unsure he knew exactly what he was talking about, and went back to her lonesome continent of toys.

Eventually Toshinori came home and they watched a movie (or the two of them watched a movie and Aizawa graded) and dinner was not forgotten and bedtime was at the regularly scheduled hour. All of it definitely seemed to calm Eri down and by the end of the night she was chattering and showing Toshinori the castle she had made with the playset. She even went to bed without a fuss.

The next morning was an early one, but Toshinori took the lion's share of rousting their sleepy cottonball and passing her off to Mic and Nemuri, who prided themselves on whisking Eri away on their “Sassy Sundays”. From the sound of it, they didn't do anything particularly sassy when they went out to the park and the mall or wherever, but they had gotten Eri to call it by name and that seemed enough to encourage them and their babysitting brand terribly. But if they didn't come back with the new shoes he'd texted them, he would definitely murder both of them. If he was out of bed by the time they got back, that is.

Wishful thinking.

“Shouta,” Toshinori called, well after their rabble had receded and the door had shut. He sounded concerned. “What's this?”

Aizawa turned precariously in the doorway to their bedroom, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes (he was up, he was up), and found Toshinori holding the internship list from yesterday aloft with a befuddled look on his face. Exasperation practically electrocuted Aizawa's aching, waking body and the homeroom teacher couldn't help but grimace.

“My list,” he half-snapped, feeling very put-upon by his housemates to explain a single sheet of fucking paper.

“No, I mean ...” Toshinori's head dipped and he made an odd snorting noise before turning the page toward him with a cockeyed smile. “I don't think it's entirely yours anymore. I think somebody found it and … helped.”

Aizawa shuffled forward and squinted: at the bottom of his slanted and skinny scribbles, there was a jumble of writing, so heavy-handed that it had nearly punctured the paper in the process. The rounded, wobbly text was clearly crayon, and clearly Eri's, and immediately Aizawa felt like an ass.

Regret chased the hot exasperation and, abruptly, standing upright in the kitchen was too exhausting to stand and he just wanted to go back to bed. Forever.

Unfortunately, the official, UA-approved parts of his list still existed and called to him and he needed coffee. So Aizawa did what he usually did when caught off-guard or duly ashamed: he made a flat, surly, vaguely sorry sound and went back to what he was doing before the shaming. But of course, Toshinori wouldn't let him escape.

“Let's see. We have … Item number one,” he announced, unbearably grandiose. He raised a long crooked finger, already grinning. “Aizawa-sensei, go to sleep. Hah! She knows you, alright!”

Aizawa scowled silently into his mug as he filled it with black-as-death coffee and decided against thanking his very considerate, very annoying boyfriend for having it ready when he woke up. Stupid good man.

“Two, eat green food. Very specific,” Toshinori said with a quiet laugh, then cleared his throat and continued, following Aizawa to the couch as he read the rest of the list aloud. “Love my Himawari, which is spelled a little creatively, but there's a little drawing of a cat here in case we had any doubt. Oh, and hug Eri and Yagi-san. Then, fun. Lastly, big smile, and Plus Ultra. You can do it all, Aizawa-sensei!”

Toshinori was beaming when he finished, caving chest puffed with pride at their charge's sense of concern and care, but Aizawa couldn't do more than wrinkle his nose and take a deep drag of his coffee, purposefully glancing aside. Something else was solidly blocking any possible enjoyment of the moment and it was obvious to his boyfriend, who set the list on the table and took a seat next to him on the couch.

“Ah! And what's that sour face for, my love?” Toshinori asked gently, slipping an arm around his waist as he settled back. Aizawa squinted down at the list and tried to order his thoughts, but he kept hitting a wall: namely, the round, jumbled letters Eri had clearly contributed before leaving that morning. It was a message from a little girl telling him, in no uncertain terms, to take care of himself … was that what was shaking him, or was it the man at his side, sincerely asking after his strange reaction?

“Dunno,” he muttered at last, shrugging. He was suddenly very aware of Toshinori's thin arm around his waist and it helped him put everything together: which long-buried assumptions of his adult hero career were crashing against his current lived reality. He frowned.

“Guess I thought I'd be dead before I could be this … domestic.”

“Domestic isn't bad,” Toshinori offered in a tone implying he was afraid he was the only one with that opinion. Aizawa shook his head and smoothed a hand over his boyfriend's bony knee, humming to himself as he thought. Toshinori waited, and the younger hero was grateful for the trust that allowed them to just sit for a moment in silence without any whining or prodding.

“I'll admit, I didn't see myself here, either,” Toshinori said after a moment, too quietly. Aizawa felt his partner and co-teacher shift before Toshinori pulled his hand away, long limbs and easy embrace receding like a silent tide. His head fell forward, sharp profile touched with bitterness. “In more than one way.”

Just the two of them together on a couch was a gamble shadowed by the future, and the implication was clear: I didn't expect to live this long.

Aizawa hated it when Toshinori physically pulled away from him, because it reflected a greater recoiling in the man's enormous, wondrous and wounded heart, and what he thought he was allowed to have. So he grabbed that hand and pulled him back. Held him to his knee. Squeezed.

Refocus. Redirect. Reassure.

“It's fine,” he said and barely heard how foggy and reluctant he sounded as the words came out. He almost winced. Toshinori puffed out a laugh.

“Is it?” he chided, sparse brows high, and Aizawa sighed and shook his head, making a grumbling noise.

“It is. It definitely is, it's just … different. I've never lived with anybody long enough to build routines, or needed to. And I'm not used to making lists for anything outside of work,” he admitted at length, grimacing down at the paper and it's colorful, lopsided additions. “Groceries, errands, meals, that kind of thing.”

“Well, it makes a kind of sense,” Toshinori said with a particular, dreamy lightness that let Aizawa know he was in trouble before Toshinori even glanced over at him, dark eyes glittering with glee. “You make lists to remember things that are actually important to you, after all.”

Ten refutes or unabashed insults flashing through his head, Aizawa settled for frowning and whacking the ex-hero's leg with all the wordless offense he could muster. Toshinori laughed, raising a hand to fend off any further abuse and then laying it on his bent back, rubbing with a palpable, beaming fondness that was almost entirely too much for that hour of the morning.

… Mid-morning. Noon, whatever, it was too much. Too bright.

“You're a dedicated workaholic, my love, and that's why I'm here. To help. But I'm not an expert! In fact, I'm just as terrible as you. Together, we're giving the daily life of teachers and civilians our best shot,” he said with that old Plus Ultra confidence, then, when Aizawa just grunted, he softened and leaned in to press a gentle kiss to his temple. Toshinori stayed there, nose in his ratty morning hair, and after a moment he breathed in right next to his ear. The full, rasping sound sent shivers streaking down the underground hero's back and he woke up a little more, leaning into Toshinori as his mate pondered aloud.

“Hmm. Still, I'd say we're getting better at this … domestic thing, don't you think?”

Toshinori had a point. There was stuff in the fridge, clean clothes, and meals planned. They had pickup plans and standing dates. Eri had sort of forced them to organize themselves and it was … good.

They didn't have to worry about bills, per living in the dorms, and even if they did, Toshinori had neglected to mention until maybe 9 months into their official relationship that he was rich. Shamefully fucking rich. (And Aizawa didn't look up 5-story velvet self-cleaning cat castles that night on the internet, no, certainly not. Although the most recommended company did deliver in three days, if he was ever interested).

Still, it was working. Heroes attempting to be responsible and adult humans was maybe the last and final battle, and avoiding it was possibly the reason Aizawa had hidden himself in the grey space between teaching and patrol. But here, with Toshinori?

He liked it. He liked his things all in one place. He liked being domestic, and all the coffee and hugs and help that entailed with a mate as considerate as Toshinori.

“We could still have groceries delivered,” Aizawa grumbled into his mug, “It's a pain in the ass to do it every week and you almost threw your back out trying to lift that economy-size rice bag last time.”

“I like going outside with Eri. That's our Saturday,” he protested, very clearly not addressing the rice incident.

Aizawa immediately sighed, and loudly, knowing he had no fucking say in how the house was run when he was little more than a passenger. A passenger who made lists occasionally, and who probably needed to help out more with the laundry.

His first strange thought about the entire situation was this: Toshinori needed to go running or exploring more often if outside was a distinct place to him, especially if there was any chance he felt trapped or sequestered in the apartment due to Eri or his perceived duties or both. That was not acceptable and they would have to talk about it.

A second, and stranger, thought followed: they had a house. A household, a home.

“Fine,” Aizawa said, maybe just to overpower the strongest sensation of his stomach turning, then jumping, then shivering with sudden disbelief of his current life situation that was so much more than a rental agreement.

He was voted most likely to end up in a dumpster in his high-school days – an unofficial and ridiculous poll, but still. Who said he was allowed, or ever expected, to have a real home?

“I know you know this, but efficiency isn't always the best way, my love. Yes, having food delivered would be convenient but sometimes life is built around the unnecessary but enjoyable things. That's one of the things children excel in teaching us old people, I think,” Toshinori was saying, with a gentleness that approached deadly, then his fellow instructor chuckled against his temple. Aizawa felt a finger trace over his open palm and when Toshinori spoke again, his voice was deeper, rich and just a little smug.

“Besides, you know how to play. I know you do.”

Aizawa's heart leapt embarrassingly high, as if the latent memory of himself as a sensual being with a life outside of lists and a boyfriend and an empty apartment lit his entire body up at once.

Thoroughly awake, he grinned wolfishly, putting down his coffee and closing his fingers over Toshinori's questing hand. He made a considering sound, then grabbed the list and lifted it high, only to let it fall to the floor. Toshinori's dry chuckle for his drama, a rare thing itself, was reward enough. Fingers already questing under the retired hero's sleep shirt, Aizawa nosed up under his chin, already practically purring from closeness and anticipation.

“Wanna play, then? I'm done with my list,” he asked against Toshinori's lips, and received a quick kiss and a sound of mock surprise.

“Oh, are you?” Toshinori mused, pulling back just enough for Aizawa to catch his little smirk. Never one to waffle when presented with an opportunity to steal a romp from the jaws of their busy schedule, Aizawa's hand was already moving for his waistband. Toshinori was hardly able to talk for his stupid, airless giggle as he pressed the homeroom teacher back into the couch with a mischievous grin, yet locked his long arms to resist Aizawa's determined tugging on his shoulders. Like a dumbass.

“Toshi,” Aizawa urged huskily, wrapping his legs around anything he could reach to weigh and strangle him into submission. It was a relatively lovey-dovey name that hardly saw the light of day (the dark of night was another matter entirely) and thus fairly weaponized when the younger hero wanted something, but here the beloved ploy only made Toshinori's grin widen.

“You say you're done, but I'd, ah, check again. Because I think ... you have... one more thing... to do.”

This idiot. His wonderful idiot.

“Ah. One question,” Aizawa deadpanned, ceasing his yanking and looking Toshinori straight in the face. “Is it hard?”

That was entirely too much for Toshinori, who loved puns more than life itself, and laughed so hard his face went pink. When he surfaced, teary-eyed, Aizawa was smiling up at him, and flipped one of the older hero's dangling yellow bangs around his finger before giving it a light tug.

“Shut up and kiss me, old man.”

Day in and day out, Toshinori was something he never regretted crossing off his list.