Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

Last week, Hizashi and Nemuri were gossiping about Endeavour while they were all out grabbing brunch. Shouta usually checks out when conversation turns gossipy because he generally doesn't care about other people's lives if he doesn't know them personally.

This week, after a truly strange set of circumstances that led to him to becoming a babysitter, Shouta finds himself wishing he listened at least a little. If he'd listened, he might have known that Endeavour has not three kids, but four.

"Holy shit, kid!" he hisses, trying to calm down his heart. Shouta's currently staying overnight at the Todorokis because Endeavour needed to pull a night shift for a case. One second, he'd been standing alone in the kitchen grabbing a midnight snack, and the next there was a ghostly child beside him, pale and bandaged around the head like an apparition and looking up at him with a big grey eye.

He would never admit it even on pain of death, but Shouta jumped about a foot in the air and instinctively grabbed his capture weapon. He pats down his capture weapon around his neck now, trying his best to soothe his pride and still look like he has dignity in front of this tiny kid with hair half-white and half-red—another one of Endeavour's kids. Shouta's hoping this is the last of them, but he'll stay on guard just in case.

"Who are you?" the kid asks, continue to stare intently at Shouta's face.

Shouta crouches down to look at the kid at eye level. "My name is Shouta Aizawa, and I'm babysitting you and your siblings while your mom's in the hospital."

The kid's eyes well up. "I want Mommy though," he whispers. He looks so sad. Shouta awkwardly pats the kid's head.

"I'm sorry," Shouta says. He pats the kid's head one more time while he sniffles, and then withdraws his hand. "What's your name?"

"Shouto," Shouto replies. "Our names are really similar."

"Yes," Shouta replies.

Little Shouto pouts slightly, the gears in his brain turning, then his one visible eye lights up. An idea? "I'll call you Shouta-nii, and you can just call me Shoucchan like my siblings do."

Shouta, weirdly, blushes. He's never really been anyone's nii-san before. "Are you sure?" he asks. "That seems really familiar..."

"I'm sure," Shoucchan replies, his face solemn—this must be a serious deal for him. "You're bigger so you can keep your whole name. I don't mind Shoucchan anyways. Mommy calls me that too."

His voice wavers when he brings up his mom again, and it's enough to make Shouta cave. He never lets it show, but he's weak toward cuteness, and this child is not exempt. Shouta sighs. "All right then. It's nice to meet you, Shoucchan."

"It's nice to meet you too, Shouta- nii." He gives Shouta a small smile. And then, "Can you warm up some milk for me." It's phrased like a question but said like a statement.

Shouta raises his eyebrows, taken aback. Awfully familiar indeed. "Why don't you do it yourself?"

"It's your job 'cuz you're the nii-san," Shoucchan explains. "That's what Natsu-nii told Touya-nii before."

"What did Touya-nii say?" Shouta asks, amused and intrigued.

Shoucchan's mouth twists a little. "He also said Natsu-nii should do it himself." It makes Shouta laugh, because that seems in line with what he's learned about Touya over the past week. "...He still did it though."

"And I will too," Shouta replies. He ruffles the kid's hair, being careful not to disrupt the bandages. He figures this head injury must be why he hasn't seen little Shouto around the house so far.

He gets milk from the fridge, pours it into a mug and then microwaves it while Shoucchan makes his way to a nearby table and settles himself in.

They end up spending a half hour together in silence before Shoucchan says he should go back to sleep. Shouta almost gets up to walk the kid to his room, but then realizes Shoucchan is going in the direction of the part of the house Endeavour explicitly forbade him from exploring.

Hm.

"Good night, kid," Shouta calls softly as the kid pads away on his small slippered feet.

Shoucchan turns back. His big grey eye looks a little empty when he looks back at Shouta, but then he smiles and his gaze warms up a little. "Good night, Shouta-nii."

Shouta sees him one more time a week and a half later around the same time and place, and then he doesn't see Shoucchan at all for the next four or so months.

2.

All four of the Todoroki kids and Shouta are sitting around in front of the TV. Touya and Shouta are on the couch, still bandaged and recovering from the ordeal last week at Sekoto.

Since the incident, it seems Endeavour has let up on isolating Shoucchan from his siblings and training his quirk. Shouta had unraveled the whole thing, and he'd been disgusted by the implications—training little Shouto past his limit, hurting his wife for getting in the way and making her feel so unsafe she mistook her child for her husband and hurt him, neglecting Touya and Fuyumi and Natsuo... god.

Endeavour seems like he feels guilty, and has decided to retain Shouta as the babysitter while he continues to hero and his wife continues to recover, but Shouta doesn't trust the guilt, or the sincerity. He'll have to prove that he finds his family more important than beating All Might in the rankings.

Regardless, the guilt has netted Shoucchan a freer childhood for the time being, Touya seems more calm now that Endeavour isn't training any of the children, and both Fuyumi and Natsuo seem happy enough to be with all their siblings together, no Endeavour in the house.

And now they're sitting and watching TV. It's something Shouta put on, since he was the first one there trying to couch potato in peace, and somehow the children congregated around him when he wasn't looking.

They all seem more or less engaged in what Shouta's watching—some sort of action comedy something that he chose 'cuz it was mindless—with the exception of Shoucchan, who is sitting by Shouta's legs and pouting.

"What is it," Shouta says, nudging the boy's shoulder. Shoucchan stiffens, but then leans into the contact. They're all collectively working on physical affection, since they're all collectively lacking with it. Shouta is including himself in this.

Shoucchan twists his stoic little face up a little more, and Shouta holds back a smile because the boy would probably get offended. The bandage covering his other eye has long since been removed, and his red scar crinkles a little at the edges where his cheek puffs up with his expression. His grey and blue eyes turn on Shouta.

"Let's watch something else," he says.

"No," Touya replies immediately. "The movie's not over yet." He hasn't looked away from the TV.

"But I want to watch the All Might movie," Shoucchan says.

"You always watch the All Might movie." Touya still hasn't broken his gaze away from the screen, where some guy is barrel rolling through a window.

"'Cuz it's good," Shoucchan grouses. "Natsu-nii, you like the All Might movie right?"

"We watched it yesterday, Shoucchan," Natsuo replies. At least he has the courtesy to give his little brother a sheepish smile before returning his eyes to the screen.

Shouta watches with mild amusement as Shoucchan pats his only sister's shoulder to catch her attention. "Yumi-nee, don't you want to watch the All Might movie?"

Fuyumi looks like she's trying not to look directly at her little brother's face. "I mean, we do watch it a lot, Shoucchan..." she starts.

"But Yumi-nee," Shoucchan replies, plaintive now. "Hey."

Fuyumi makes the mistake of turning to look at him, and is immediately arrested by heterochromic puppy dog eyes. "I mean...!"

Suddenly, she's hit in the face by the throw pillow that had been by Touya's side. "Don't look at him, Yumi, or he's going to win."

"Ow, Touya-nii!" she complains, fixing her glasses where they'd been knocked askew from the hit.

Shouta sighs and pushes at Touya's face—gently to avoid worsening his still-healing facial burns, but firmly. Touya yelps.

"Ow, what!"

"Don't throw things at your sister," Shouta says.

"You're really gonna bully an invalid like this, Shouta-nii?" Touya asks, scrunching his face up.

"You're really gonna throw hands with a twelve year old?" Shouta returns.

"I wasn't throwing hands, I was throwing pillows," Touya returns. "Throw pillows, actually, so I'm just using them the way I'm supposed to."

"That's not—"

"And also, I only just turned fourteen, so throwing hands with a twelve year old isn't that sad," Touya continues.

"It sounds a little sad, Touya-nii," Natsuo says. What a great kid.

Touya huffs and crosses his arms. "Whatever, Natsu."

Fuyumi stands and returns the throw pillow to Touya's side, because she's also a great kid. "You're lucky you have bandages on your face Touya-nii," she says with a stern frown.

Touya sticks out his tongue in reply because he's a very mature fourteen year old. Everyone chuckles and settles back down.

When Shouta looks back at the television, an All Might movie is playing.

"Wh—Shoucchan!" Touya exclaims.

"Shouto," Fuyumi turns her stern frown toward her littlest brother.

Natsuo's laughing again.

Shoucchan looks serene, a few feet closer to the TV than he had been. All Might is saying I am here! on the TV, and Shoucchan looks enraptured despite this being the hundredth time he's watched this. Thousandth, maybe, if his siblings are to be believed.

The TV remote he must have pilfered at some point in the last five minutes is beside him, encased in a block of solid ice.

Shouta snorts. "Y'know, when that ice turns to water, it'll probably ruin your TV remote. I guess you guys are gonna be stuck watching this All Might movie for a long while."

Shoucchan turns toward Shouta to give him an excited look at the prospect, a rare delighted giggle coming from him in a direct contrast to the chorus of older sibling whining that comes from the other three kids.

He shakes his head, smiling fondly. At least Shouta can go home and watch his own TV.

3.

It's been three years since Shouta started babysitting the kids. Enji's been putting in the effort and being home in the evenings more (with Shouta's strict gaze on his actions and the kids all making sure to keep Shouta updated), and the kids all see their mother regularly in the hospital. With therapy, routine visits, and divorce papers on the way, she seems close to being cleared for her own place.

Since Touya's now seventeen and Fuyumi's fifteen, and with their dad home pretty regularly and seemingly doing all right at the parenting thing, Shouta hasn't strictly needed to continue babysitting, but he likes to drop by at least once a week if not more. They've become close—they've felt like Shouta's younger siblings for a long time now (though he will never say he's like Enji's fifth kid, gross). Shoucchan's still only eight and Natsuo twelve, so it's nice to continue being in their lives as they grow. And it's great to see the adults Touya and Fuyumi are becoming.

At twenty three, Shouta and Hizashi have also gotten their acts together and finally started dating, after years and years of pining (not that Shouta will ever admit this to anyone who wasn't there to witness it). It's been about three months and it looks like things will go well for the foreseeable future—and hopefully the unforeseeable future too—so he decides he might as well bring Hizashi over to the Todorokis to meet Shouta's pseudo-siblings.

He decides to warn the kids two days beforehand, which is where he's finding himself now: staring flatly at Touya's annoying smirk. "Oh, you're finally calling Hizashi your boyfriend?"

Shouta keeps his expression blank. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Fuyumi gives him a knowing look, and damn, he always forgets she likes to meddle 'cuz she's always so damn polite about it. "Shouta-nii, he's like, your second favourite conversation topic after cats."

"No," Shouta says, "I don't have conversations because I don't talk enough to call them that."

"That's why your non-conversation topics are so memorable, dumbass," Touya says, and okay, rude.

Yumi smacks Touya's arm before Shouta can react to being called a dumbass by this dumbass teenager. "Where are your manners, Touya-nii?" she reprimands.

"Yumi-nee, we all know he doesn't have them," Natsuo says teasingly, looking highly entertained. Touya actually looks proud at this statement, the little asshole. "I for one am excited to meet Shouta-nii's boyfriend," Natsu continues. "How 'bout you, Shoucchan?"

They all turn at once to look at the eight year old, and he looks right at Shouta. "I have to approve," he says, and what?

His three elder siblings laugh. "Actually, the kid's got a point," Touya says in a reasonable tone of voice.

Shouta glares at Touya. Not helping. Touya grins back.

"Shoucchan, Shouta-nii loves Hizashi-san," Fuyumi says, and Shouta tries valiantly not to blush and say something stupid like I don't not love him. Natsuo and Touya turn to him in tandem with shit-eating grins on their faces because they are too alike sometimes. This probably means Shouta looks like a tomato. Great. "Shouta-nii will date Hizashi-san even if you don't like him."

Shoucchan makes his subtle grumpy face, where his face remains mostly solemn but his mouth ticks down a centimetre on the side. "I guess we'll see," he says ominously.

Again, his older siblings laugh, because they love to laugh at Shouta's expense. Again, that pesky fondness hits, even as he rolls his eyes at them.

"I'm sure you'll love him," Shouta says, and thinks about the way Hizashi softens, especially when he's talking to kids. He's good at putting kids at ease using songs and rhymes, and he's recently started to grow his hair out long enough to braid, which little girls love to do. Hizashi looks... really great with his hair in a french braid or a half-bun. "He's easy to love."

Proving they share the same brain cell, Touya and Natsu start immediately pretending to gag, making disgusted faces. "You would say that. You're biased!" Beside them, Fuyumi's eyes get big and misty behind her glasses. Shouto narrows his eyes, but says nothing.

Shouta shrugs. "Hizashi's great. So what do you gremlins want for dinner?"

*

Hizashi is nervous at first, meeting the kids. ("They're so important to you, Shouta, I just want to make a good impression!" he'd said, melting Shouta's heart just a tiny bit.) He hits it off immediately with Natsu, because Natsuo is sociable and lovable, and Hizashi is secretly just twelve. He bonds with Yumi over the drama they're both watching and their interest in teaching. (Fuyumi's thinking of becoming a teacher, and Nemuri's finally convinced Hizashi to join the UA teaching staff the following school year—she's still out to get Shouta, but Shouta remains skeptical about his teaching abilities and... he still thinks about how Oboro said he'd be a good teacher, and shies away.)

Touya gives Hizashi the evil eye when he first walks in, and then casually mentions that his quirk can get hot enough to cremate a human body, bones and all. Hizashi laughs nervously while Shouta glares at Touya, unimpressed. Touya just grins back, completely unconcerned, and then heartily smacks Hizashi in the back. "But no worries, Yamada! Now—tell us about Shouta-nii in high school." At this, Hizashi lights up immediately, and his laugh this time around is much louder and more genuine.

Anyways, they make friends over Shouta's eternal suffering.

This leaves Shoucchan, who is observing silently from behind Touya. His quietness has led Hizashi to be a little quieter with his volume than Shouta's used to, but it's sweet that he's trying not to scare Shoucchan. Hizashi waves at the boy, but Shouto retreats behind his older brother, who ruffles his hair until the red and white mix. Touya looks affectionately at the kid peeking out from behind him (a look he denies wearing, but that Shouta's seen him make over all his younger siblings at some point) and he takes Hizashi's attention off his youngest sibling. Shouta holds Hizashi's hand to offer silent comfort, intertwining their fingers. Touya smirks but says nothing.

They eventually gather around the TV, Shouta making a call to get pizza delivered while Natsu finds a movie to stream.

Shouta and Hizashi sit down together on the loveseat, the bigger couch open for the kids. The four siblings fit on there pretty comfortably—Shouta's seen them squish together under the same blanket for comfort despite the extra space they have. It's cute.

He's just settling into Hizashi's side when Shoucchan walks right up to them and sits in between them. Hizashi looks bewildered but accommodates the kid. Shouta frowns.

"Shoucchan, I thought you would sit with your siblings," Shouta says.

"No, I'm going to sit here," he says, and leans into Shouta. "I want to sit beside Shouta-nii."

"Shoucchan," Fuyumi says, beckoning with a hand, "sit between me and Touya-nii and let Shouta-nii sit alone with his boyfriend."

"I don't wanna," Shouto replies, crossing his arms.

Yumi looks like she's going to argue again, but Hizashi waves his hands like he's trying to physically clear the air. "It's okay, really! I don't mind."

"Me neither," Natsuo says jovially, spreading out between Touya and Fuyumi now that he doesn't need to leave a space for Shouto. "This is great, actually!" Touya rolls his eyes but holds onto Natsu's ankles where they rest in his lap, and the tension in Yumi's shoulders eases as she ruffles Natsuo's hair, having easy access to it with his head on her lap.

Sociable and lovable, that's Natsuo. Also getting very tall—he's taking up most of the couch lying down now. Shit, is he taller than Shouta yet? Natsuo's always been slightly taller than Touya and now Touya's approaching Shouta's height too and it's not making him feel great.

"Who's your favourite hero?" Shoucchan asks, still with his arms crossed and squinting at Hizashi.

Hizashi smiles. "Am I allowed to say Eraserhead?" he asks with a grin at Shouta. Shouta flushes.

"Shut up, Hizashi," he mumbles.

Shoucchan makes a considering face. "Yeah, that's a good answer," he replies. "Shouta-nii is very cool. Mine's All Might though."

Hizashi grins. "That's a good answer too," he says. "I met him once, y'know?"

It's the right thing to say. Shoucchan perks right up. "You did?" he asks, awed.

"Yep! I was MC-ing for an event and All Might was the special guest," Hizashi says. Shouta remembers this. It was a charity event last year that he'd attended. Hizashi looked really great in his navy suit as he stood on that stage and introduced different guests, ending the night with All Might.

"Did you talk to him?" Shoucchan asks.

"I did," Hizashi replies. "I shook his hand and his grip was reeeally strong," he says dramatically, shaking out his hand like he still feels the pain. Then he chuckles as he remembers something. "I checked in with him before the event started and his phone went off while we were talking. His ringtone was himself saying I am here! I am here! It was pretty funny."

Shoucchan giggles at this, and even the other kids laugh. The Todoroki siblings know all sorts of trivia about All Might, considering Shoucchan's hero worship and the way All Might is still a sore subject with their father (Touya pulls out fun facts about All Might when he wants to irritate Endeavour, and it makes Shouta laugh). It seems Hizashi found something they didn't know yet.

"I wanna meet All Might one day," Shoucchan says dreamily. "Maybe when I become a hero."

"I'm sure you will, kiddo," Hizashi says with a warm smile. "I bet you'll make a great hero." Shouta's heart melts just a little bit more. Apparently, so does Shoucchan's, because he shifts away from Shouta's side and closer to Hizashi with a proud look on his face. He gives Hizashi one more assessing look from head to toe, and then nods approvingly.

"I guess you're allowed to date Shouta-nii," he announces, and then gets off the loveseat and jumps right onto Natsu's stomach (who wheezes but manages to catch his little brother).

Hizashi looks both delighted and charmed. "Thank you," he replies, and reaches out to hold Shouta's hand. "I won't disappoint you."

Shoucchan smiles shyly at them and then starts ruthlessly kicking at Natsuo, who is refusing to make space for him on the couch. Fuyumi starts trying to separate them.

Touya looks unbothered by his siblings, even with Natsuo's and Shouto's legs intermittently waving in front of his face. "Flattery gets you places in this family," he says with a shrug, and then hits play on the movie while his siblings continue to struggle.

Shouta facepalms. Beside him, Hizashi's shoulders shake with laughter.

4.

Nemuri finally gets Shouta to start teaching at UA, at twenty six. He's only about a decade older than his class, but listening to their conversations makes him feel fucking ancient. He keeps a sleeping bag in the closet for work periods, still does underground hero stuff at night, and forever continues to keep an eye on Endeavour's parenting skills.

Speaking of—he's meeting the kids in the city today to go around the mall and then head for dinner. Well, he says kids but now that Touya's twenty and in university, with Fuyumi graduating high school this year and Natsuo starting high school this year, he's hard-pressed to call them that.

But they'll always be kids to him. Tiny little basically-siblings who need supervision. The kids who prepared him to be a teacher, if only by showing him where his patience ended.

Fuck, but he loves them.

They're all meeting at the train station. Shouta's walking there from UA, Touya's coming on another line from campus, and Yumi and Natsu are grabbing Shoucchan after school so the three of them can take the train together. Shouta keeps an eye on his phone as he waits for them, intending to do so until they all make it there safely.

Touya shows up first and gives Shouta a hug and a smile. "Shouta-nii," he says warmly, pulling back. "Gremlins not here yet?"

"You're a gremlin too, y'know," Shouta replies fondly, reaching up to ruffle Touya's snow white hair. And Shouta does have to reach even if it's just a little—he was chagrined to find that Touya ended up taller than him after all, even if it's only by an inch. Touya lords it over him from time to time, but always stops when Natsuo catches wind of the teasing: unfortunately, Natsuo is already a few inches taller than them both, and evidently still growing. He never fails to shut Touya down about height, unholy glee on his face and in his voice. Shouta hopes Shoucchan ends up tall too, so both younger brothers can gang up on Touya together from above and Shouta can laugh at the karmic retribution.

"I'm in college now, I should be exempt," Touya says.

"Nah," Shouta replies, simply.

Touya splutters and tries to argue against his gremlin qualities until the rest of the kids arrive on the train platform. They also all give Shouta (and Touya) hugs and smiles in greeting, and it's nice.

They enjoy themselves going around the mall as a group. Touya buys three new black shirts and an edgy long coat that everyone teases him about (but he remains very happy with his purchase); Fuyumi gets her hands on some very adorable stationery and a new book trilogy; Natsuo finally replaces his soccer shoes; Shouto buys a limited edition All Might figurine they pass by and several manga volumes of the anime he started last weekend; Shouta demurely buys a few cat toys for Sushi for the next time he goes to visit Nemuri and an album Hizashi mentioned he wanted; and they all feel great about their purchases, seeing as how it's all on Endeavour's dime. Shouta used to feel weird about it, but Touya has since convinced him to just let them pay for things when they all hang out and well, Shouta works two jobs and sometimes it's nice to be treated.

You're family anyways, Shouta-nii, Touya had said. And you stopped getting paid to babysit us a long time ago anyways, so let us pay sometimes.

Touya then ruined the moment and unfortunately brought forth his strongest argument by buying Shouta the ugliest rug he's ever seen in his life and saying that if Shouta didn't let them pay for things when they hung out, they were gonna start buying him shit like this by themselves and he'd have no control over it.

The rug welcomes people at his UA office, and works as a great psychological deterrent for getting people out of his office as fast as possible so he can sleep more. Touya grins at it every time he visits.

Anyways, they're standing in the food court now, and Shoucchan has his stubborn face on. The gravity in his expression has only intensified as he's aged, and now that he's twelve, it's starting to look less cute and more aggravating. (Though there's still a degree of cuteness in it that Shouta suspects will never go away, seeing as how he knew the kid when he was five.)

"You said we'd get cold soba," he's saying to Touya, who looks exasperated.

"There's cold soba here, Shoucchan," Touya replies, gesturing at a restaurant that presumably sells cold soba.

"But not the good kind," he grouses, then turns to Shouta. "Shouta-nii, come on," he says, and then grabs Shouta's wrist and starts pulling him away from the food court.

"What," Shouta says.

"Buy me the good cold soba," he says, walking. "We'll come back."

"Shoucchan, no," Shouta says, pulling back. "We'll stay with your siblings, I'm hanging out with everyone today."

Shoucchan's stubborn face gets more stubborn. "We're all splitting up to get food. I said we'll come back."

Shouta rolls his eyes. "What if I want something here?"

Shoucchan pauses and actually considers this, then asks, "Do you, though?"

"Huh?"

"You don't usually care and you didn't mention anything you wanted to eat today," he says reasonably. "You can buy food at the soba place I want to go to, too."

"Yes, but that's not the point," Shouta says.

"What's the point?"

"The point," Shouta starts, and then stops. What was the point? "The point... is that you should ask first before dragging people off, and you should make sure you have permission before you go."

"I'm asking now," Shoucchan replies easily, "and you're the one I need permission from, which is why I'm bringing you along."

Shouta sighs. "What about your older brother, huh? You left in the middle of talking to Touya."

"Touya doesn't care 'cuz I went with you, see?" Shoucchan points behind him, where Touya had been when they started arguing about food selection, and Shouta sees that yeah, Touya's gone. A little more searching reveals him to be waiting in line at a chicken place. When he catches Shouta looking, he smirks and waves.

Shouta sighs again. Kids.

"All right, all right," he says, rolling his eyes. "Let's go get your cold soba."

Shoucchan clenches his fist, in a gesture small enough Shouta almost misses it.

It's cute. Shouta ruffles Shoucchan's hair so that the red and white mix together, and they go buy cold soba.

5.

In what Shouta will insist is an unlucky turn of events, Shoucchan has ended up in his homeroom class at UA. He bothers Shouta a lot in the dorms, and needles him about making food for him and getting snacks, like he always does.

Yeah, all right, it's pretty nice to see his (pseudo) littlest brother as often as he does.

It's also nice that Hitoshi, whom Shouta met last semester and is now formally fostering, is going to be able to join his homeroom and move into the 1A dorm soon enough. It's great to see his foster son so often, and confirm with his eyes that he's safe. He trusts the people who watch over Eri, but he would still rather be there himself, and with Hitoshi in his class and in the dorms, at least he can do that more frequently for one of his kids.

He and Hizashi have plans to bring up officially adopting Hitoshi with him in the near future—this weekend, in fact, but the Thursday evening before finds him massaging the wrinkle between his brows as Shoucchan and Hitoshi stand in front of him in his office at the 1A dorm.

"Run this by me again? he asks.

Hitoshi looks nervous and uncertain. It's not easy to tell, since Hitoshi's very good at keeping his face blank, but Shouta's gotten to know him well enough to watch for the tells—the way he flexes his hands, the way he flicks his gaze stoically behind Shouta's head before returning to eye contact. They've been working on Hitoshi trusting that even if Shouta or Hizashi are frustrated, they aren't going to deal with him unfairly or treat him terribly, and that if any of them makes a mistake, they will talk about it. Shouta thinks it's paying off, but it's slow-going.

By contrast, Shoucchan looks absolutely unbothered. The perks of growing up around Shouta, he supposes. He never really acts out—he's a very reasonable kid, usually—but whenever he's in trouble, he never really sweats the consequences, and tends to hold on to his belief that he was right in his actions.

Maybe that attitude, specifically, is one that comes more from Touya.

"Hitoshi didn't really have anything to do with it," Shoucchan replies. "He was just there when Kaminari fell out the window."

"Okay," Shouta says, "and why did Kaminari fall out the window?"

"We were testing the adhesives on Sero's tape," Shoucchan replies.

"Sure," Shouta says, and then looks at Hitoshi. "Can you explain how Midoriya and Bakugou got into an argument about who could throw a person farther?"

Hitoshi scratches his cheek with his pointer finger. "Is that what they argued about?"

Shouta turns his gaze back to Shoucchan. "Did you figure out if you or Ashido managed to slide faster down the hall?"

The corner of Shoucchan's mouth wavers, but in the end he manages to keep his face infuriatingly flat, the little asshole. "I don't know what you're talking about, Shouta-nii," he says.

"I don't know why any of you problem children think you can hide things from me," Shouta says, rolling his eyes. "I saw Bakugou yelling at all of you about how to clean up acid on wooden flooring." Shoucchan breaks into a small, endeared smile at that, and Shouta takes note but doesn't remark on it. Instead he says, "Also, I've told you before, it's Sensei at school."

Hitoshi smirks, having already met and interacted with the Todorokis outside of school. Shouta supposes they're kind of like cousins now. If Hitoshi agrees to the adoption, they'd basically be family. It makes Shouta's heart feel warm.

"We're not at school though," Hitoshi says. "Right, Shoucchan?"

Shoucchan rolls his eyes—Hitoshi only calls him Shoucchan when he's teasing—but nods out of solidarity. "School is over for today Shouta-nii," he says. "Besides, people make mistakes. You're not gonna get mad if Hitoshi calls you Dad at school, are you?"

Shouta's heart stops. Hitoshi turns a confused expression at Shoucchan. "I haven't called a teacher Mom or Dad in forever."

"It makes sense to make a mistake if he's your actual dad at home though," Shoucchan replies.

"Shouto," Shouta says, cutting sharp into the conversation.

They both turn to him, wide-eyed, and Shoucchan starts to pale. "Oh, did you not... tell him yet?"

"Tell me what?" Hitoshi asks, voice quiet.

Shouta pinches the bridge of his nose. "Hizashi was supposed to be here for this conversation," he says, "and we will talk more about it at home, but..." He looks up and right into Hitoshi's eyes, trying to make his expression and voice as warm and earnest as possible. "Hitoshi, Hizashi and I would like to adopt you. Formally."

"O-oh..." Hitoshi says, looking overwhelmed.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Shouta says. "We will obviously continue to foster you no matter what, but we love you. We want you to be our son and Eri's brother, if you want. Officially, and legally. You can think about it more, of course, but since Shoucchan's already mentioned it, I might as well just ask now."

Hitoshi starts to flush, tears welling in his eyes, and he darts a look at Shoucchan (who is looking carefully at the back corner of the ceiling) and then looks back at Shouta. "I... Yeah, I want to."

Shouta feels tears well up in his own eyes and he stands up. Hitoshi rushes to the other side of the desk and wraps his arms around Shouta, who hugs him back tight. "I love you, Hitoshi," he says. "You don't need to call me Dad," he says with flat irony in his voice as he looks at Shoucchan. Shouta gets a sheepish look back, Shoucchan rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. Shouta runs fingers through unruly violet hair and says, "I'm happy you want to be my son, though."

"Love you too," Hitoshi mumbles into Shouta's shirt, and squeezes tighter for a moment longer before straightening up and turning to Shoucchan. "You're an idiot," he says, flippantly but fondly, and rubs at his eyes.

Shoucchan takes it for the olive branch it is, and smirks again, back on firm ground. "That isn't any way to talk to your uncle, Hitoshi."

"Uncle?" Hitoshi asks skeptically.

"Yeah, 'cuz Shouta-nii's like my older brother, so you're my nephew now," Shoucchan explains.

Hitoshi rolls his eyes. "If you insist, Ojii-san."

Shoucchan makes an expression like he didn't expect this development and pauses, visibly backpedalling in his brain. "I'll never call you my nephew again if you promise to call Touya-nii that," he suddenly proposes.

Hitoshi snorts. "Deal."

They both start to walk toward Shouta's office door when Shouta stops them. "Ah-ah," he says. "Nice try, Shoucchan, but we still need to discuss both of your punishments for this dorm debacle."

"Damn," Shoucchan mutters, turning back.

Hitoshi looks amused—at least he isn't nervous anymore. "I can't believe you ruined my adoption conversation just to try to get us out of detention," he says. Shouta silently agrees, but doesn't have it in him to get properly mad when Hitoshi said yes as fast as he did, and gave him that hug. He'll have to text Hizashi so the whole family can celebrate tonight instead of over the weekend.

Shoucchan just looks put out. "It wasn't on purpose," he says, and then crosses his arms, "and it didn't even work."

Both Shouta and Hitoshi shake their heads at him. It really sells the feeling of a father-son moment, and Shouta smiles again.

Damn, it's gonna be hard to punish them now, but fair's fair and he still has to talk to a few more kids about this whole thing after he's done with Shouto and Hitoshi.

"How did you get Iida to agree to all this anyways?"

"I plead the fifth, Shouta-nii."

Hitoshi facepalms. "We're in Japan, dumbass."

+1.

The other day, Shouta noticed Shoucchan and Bakugou holding hands as they made their way from the classroom to the training ground. They were arguing the entire walk there, Bakugou looking extremely indignant about something and Shouto looking on with a solemn face and attentive eyes as he offered his replies, but they also didn't let go the entire time.

Today, Shoucchan is bothering Shouta in his dorm office as Shouta tries to grade tests from last week.

"Come on, Shouta-nii," he appeals, "it's just grading. I'm hungry now."

"Why is it always food with you," Shouta mutters under his breath, and circles an incorrect answer with his red pen. "I'm working, Shoucchan," he says in a louder voice. "We'll get dinner when I'm done."

"Shouta-nii," he says, managing to whine without actually whining, the way only Shoucchan can.

"I'm working," he says again. "If you really want food now, go ask your friends or text your siblings."

He doesn't look up to see it but Shouta feels the answering pout. "But you're here right now and I'm hungry," Shoucchan says, "so you're supposed to buy me food."

Shouta finishes marking the test in front of him and puts it in the finished pile, grabbing the next one and setting it down. "Why should I do that?" he asks, still occupied by marking.

"It's your job 'cuz you're the nii-san," Shoucchan replies solemnly. Shouta pinches the bridge of his nose—he hears that a lot from the Todoroki brothers.

Touya gets the nii-san reason a lot as well so he used to complain and stick up for Shouta on principle, but then he realized he could use it on Shouta and his opinion unfortunately changed. Shouta blames Natsuo for pointing it out to Touya. He thanks every higher being that may or may not exist that Yumi has never used 'cuz you're the nii-san on him, but he also has a feeling she's just saving it for something truly awful, and he's not looking forward to it.

He gets up with a big sigh and grabs his wallet. It's when he catches Shoucchan's subtly victorious expression and feels his smug little brother energy radiating in the air that Shouta decides to get him back for this.

They walk together to the cold soba place nearby, and Shouta waits until they have their food in front of them to strike.

"So you're dating Bakugou," Shouta starts casually, watching Shoucchan stuff his face with noodles.

Shoucchan looks quietly happy as he nods, which is good. They do look happy together during class—Nemuri and Hizashi like to coo over them in the staff room sometimes, ever the gossips—and Shouta's glad Shoucchan chose someone who can challenge him on all fronts.

This isn't about Shoucchan's happiness though.

"Since we're here," Shouta says, trying to keep the smirk off his face, "I just wanted to talk to you about a few things, now that you're dating someone."

Shoucchan pauses before his next bite, noodle-laden chopsticks halfway to his mouth. There's a faint stirring of suspicion in his expression.

"Well," Shouta says, "I'm going to preface this by saying that, as an older brother figure and your teacher, I would hope you know better than to have any kind of romantic sleepover together at this age, despite the fact that you and your boyfriend live in the same dorm."

Shoucchan looks alarmed now. "Shouta-nii, no," he says urgently.

Shouta smiles with sadistic older brother glee. "We need to talk about these things," he says, smile widening as Shoucchan pales further. "It's my job 'cuz I'm the nii-san, right Shoucchan?" He tries his best to sound just this side of sinister.

Shoucchan shakes his head and gets up in a panic, and Shouta flicks out the end of his capture weapon so that it wraps around Shoucchan's wrist and brings him back down to his seat. Their dishes rattle on the table with the force of it, but nothing gets knocked over as he withdraws the capture weapon because Shouta is a professional, thank you.

"Come on, Shoucchan, dinner is the perfect time to discuss this," he says pleasantly. "Like I said, I hope you know better, but I also remember being a teenager and I think it would be remiss of me as your nii-san if I didn't go over safe sex etiquette with you."

"Shouta-nii, please," Shoucchan says, still shaking his head. "You'll ruin cold soba for me forever and it's my favourite."

Shouta cackles. "No dice, kid. You said you wanted food so here we are. Finish your soba while I talk, 'cuz this actually is important."

Shoucchan makes a quiet wailing noise, abject misery coming off of him in waves. "Shouta-nii, no. Why."

Shouta grins more genuinely. The pout on Shoucchan's face hasn't changed all that much since Shouta met him over a decade ago, and it makes Shouta feel sentimental. He'd ruffle his hair if he didn't have to reach across the table to do it.

The nostalgia won't get Shoucchan out of the revenge that is Shouta's safe sex talk though.

Fondness drips off every syllable as Shouta replies, "You're a brat, Shoucchan."