Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eri has never seen Shouta-san cry.

She’d have been ok with never seeing it too. But something happened, she thinks. Something that put that odd, unusual red around his eyes—something that turned his remaining eye to glass.

She doesn’t want to know, she tells herself, but also… she wants to help. Shouta-san has always helped her, so she wants to help.

Bring his eye back.

“Where are you going?” she asks when she sees him in unusual clothes. A kimono. Black and traditional. It doesn’t look bad—it fits him well and everything but… but Shouta-san doesn’t seem to like it. He seems uncomfortable, like he wants to be wearing anything else—his hero jumpsuit, maybe, or even one of Eri’s rainbow cat sweatshirts.

Eri wishes she could lend him her sweatshirt so he could feel comfortable.

But she can’t, she realises. Shouta-san is wearing a kimono for a reason. Even if he’s uncomfortable.

Why would he do that?

“I’ll be out for the day,” Shouta-san answers, then his eye flickers upwards towards Eri and he walks to her, ruffles her hair. She leans in. He’s so warm, she forgets about the kimono and his glass eye for a second. “Recov— Grandma Chiyo will look after you while I’m gone,” Shouta-san says.

And Eri starts. “Why not Microphone-san?” she asks. Shouta-san snorts weakly and she doesn’t know why, but she waits. Normally, when Shouta-san has to leave for patrol, Microphone-san stays with her—which always proves to be a loud yet fun time… And if he can’t, then it’s either Toshinori-san or Lemillion-san. Sometimes Nejire-chan too.

Or Deku-san.

But Eri has never stayed with Grandma Chiyo. She wonders what could make it so that no one else could watch her…

Suddenly, a rock settles in her stomach. She hopes no one is in danger. Last time so many people were occupied at once, there was a war. And the time before that, the heroes were saving her, fighting Overh—fighting him.

She hopes they’re not fighting someone like him again.

Looking up, at Shouta-san’s kimono, she thinks this wouldn’t be his first choice, to fight dressed like this. He might trip on fabric while trying to jump from one roof to another.

But then, if they’re not going to fight, can Eri come too?

She decides to ask. Shouta-san told her to ask, when she wants things. “Can I come with you?”

Shouta-san startles. He looks uncomfortable. His glass eye widens, his shoulders rise. He doesn’t want me to come, Eri understands. But… Eri doesn’t like seeing Shouta-san like this. He doesn’t look well.

So she does what she knows will help him feel better. She hugs him. Runs into his leg and squeezes. “Please, can I come?” she asks again. She’s never been one to insist—in another world, insisting meant being punished. Shouta-san keeps telling her that it’s ok though, to insist. If she really wants something, she can.

And she really wants this.

She wants to help him.

A moment passes, and then he crouches before her. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Eri. Something—” and he clears his throat, “something happened.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but his voice tells her what he means.

“Something bad?”

“Yes,” he answers.

“To who?”

He doesn’t respond. So she presses. She’s allowed to do that now. “To someone I know?”

Again, he doesn’t respond. Not quickly anyway. But his eye seems to shatter right in front of her when he nods.

“Is it Deku-san?” she asks, heart fluttering like a hummingbird in her chest. When he shakes his head, she continues, “Lemillion-san? Tamaki-kun—”

“No, they’re fine,” Shouta-san assures and Eri sighs. Relieved.

She’s about to ask more though, ask if Toshinori-san and Nejire-chan and Microphone-san are ok—when a knock comes at the door. Shouta-san hums and it opens, a little ball of grey hair appearing on top of a big round head. Pink glasses and a cane, a long robe. “Well, good evening little madam,” the person greets Eri. Grandma Chiyo.

With her hand balled into Shouta-san’s kimono, Eri hums hello. She’d rather stay with Shouta-san, she thinks. Even if he’s going some place uncomfortable. She prefers Shouta-san.

Not that Grandma Chiyo has ever been mean to her, she’s just… not Shouta-san.

Still, Grandma Chiyo gives her a nice smile when Eri hums, and Shouta-san lays a hand back on her head. It’s warm.

“Don’t you have some place to be, Aizawa-kun,” Grandma Chiyo asks then, and Shouta-san hums, ruffling her hair gently before moving away.

She wants to go with him.

See what happened to… that person she knows.

“I’ll be back tonight, ok Eri? Don’t cause trouble,” Shouta-san says as he closes the door behind him.

And Eri frowns, her vision wobbly.

She wanted to go…

“Is it Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nii-san?” Eri asks, now on her seventh attempt.

Grandma Chiyo barely looks up from the book in her hands—and Eri did wait for her take a breath between two sentences this time, so Grandma Chiyo doesn’t tut since she didn’t interrupt. “Young Bakugou is in good health,” she answers, before licking a finger and turning the page.

Shocked, Eri’s eyes widen.

She wonders why Grandma Chiyo would even do that—saliva is full of germs, she remembers. But before she can ask, Grandma Chiyo is talking again. Reading aloud again.

So Eri waits—until she takes a breath again.

She doesn’t know how long Shouta-san has been gone. There’s a clock on the wall but she doesn’t know how to read its hands. All she knows is that it feels like forever.

But Shouta-san is still not back. He said he’d come back so it can’t have been too long.

Grandma Chiyo keeps reading and Eri decides to focus and think of another person. She is determined and patient: she will find who had Shouta-san looking so sad earlier.

She’s made her way through all of the older older students she knows and all of the teachers who have taken care of her—and Grandma Chiyo has assured her they’re all alright. There aren’t many other people Eri knows, but Shouta-san has never lied to her before so—

So she has to keep asking.

“What about Uravity-san?”

This time, Grandma Chiyo looks up—properly looks up from over her glasses, and she sets the book down. A moment passes where she says nothing, and Eri feels nervous. She likes Uravity-san. If something happened to her… She wouldn’t like it.

“You are persistent, I will give you that,” Grandma Chiyo says, and Eri doesn’t know that word but it doesn’t feel like an insult so she doesn’t say anything.

Grandma Chiyo looks at her some more and Eri tries not to fidget. “If you ask me,” she says then, “Aizawa-kun is wrong, you are old enough to understand. There is no need for these charades.”

Eri agrees. At seven years old, she’s a big girl and she understands things very easily. She’s sure she’d even be very good at those ‘charades’ whatever they are—because she’s ‘persistent’ and smart.

Plus, she cares.

She cares about that bad thing that happened to this person she knows.

She cares about Shouta-san who looked so sad.

So she watches Grandma Chiyo who watches her, and no one says anything for a moment that feels very long. The clock on the wall ticks in the room, Eri counts to ten. Twenty.

“Eri, dear,” Grandma Chiyo says at last, and it seems like she’s going to say something important with the way she sets the book aside and leans forward.

“Do you know what death is?"

The corridor looks the same as Deku-san’s corridor, except it’s on the fifth floor. Eri has never been on the fifth floor before. There are a lot of people here…

From the elevator door, between all the giant people, she spots a tall head of black matted hair—and she bolts in recognition.

Grandma Chiyo tightens her hand over Eri’s though, stopping her. Eri looks up. “You stay close to me, alright dear?” she says, and Eri wonders why. “Aizawa-kun is taking care of a lot of people right now. In the meantime, I will take care of you.”

And Eri nods. She understands—it’s true, there are a lot of people here. Besides, she can see the sun setting behind that large window in the corridor so she knows it is not tonight yet. Shouta-san said he would come back to Eri tonight. Not before.

Now, he is with other people. Helping them. Being a hero.

Grandma Chiyo nods, squeezes her hand.

Eri squeezes back.

Together, Grandma Chiyo and Eri start weaving through the fabric of all the people here. Most of them are wearing the UA uniform but Eri doesn’t recognise them. They seem to recognise Grandma Chiyo though, because the moment they see her, they make way. It’s almost comical, she thinks, how small the two of them are compared to them yet how easy it is to pass through.

People don’t normally do that for Eri so, she thinks, Grandma Chiyo must be pretty extraordinary.

As they walk, the heavy smell of something burning surrounds her, and Eri startles. She knows that smell… Grandpa used to smell like that—before Overhaul stopped taking her to him, she used to find Grandpa kneeling in front of a picture (”These are your parents, Eri,”) and the room, it smelled like that.

Eri balls her fists and frowns. Grandpa always looked so sad then.

Like those people around her do right now…

“Eri, kid!” she hears someone exclaim. The voice is very manly and makes her worries quiet down. Eri cranes her neck, sees a shock of red hair and pointy teeth.

She smiles.

“Red Riot-san,” she greets back as he approaches to crouch in front of her. From up close, he looks tired and… sad too. But he ruffles Eri’s hair like he normally does, and when he holds out his hand, she gives him a fist bump.

Someone clears their throat then, and Eri jumps. “I thought I told you not to bring her,” a voice deadpans. She would know that voice anywhere.

Shouta-san.

He sounds annoyed, sharp edges to his tone—but that’s how Eri knows he’s not talking to her. He’s never sharp with her.

When she sees him, she smiles up at him. He looks the same as earlier, black kimono and tired eye, but Eri smiles because smiling is what heroes do to help others, she remembers.

“She’s seven and she knew the poor boy,” Grandma Chiyo answers, unapologetic and firm. “I know you disagree, but I find no contra-indications to her being here.”

She doesn’t know what ‘contra-indications’ are but Shouta-san looks unconviced still, so Eri speaks up. “I want to be here,” she declares. She knows what death is, Grandpa told her about it—Overhaul made her look at it.

She doesn’t like it but… she’s not afraid to look.

Shouta-san watches her and his expression is complicated. A hand is laid on his shoulder and Eri follows it to find Microphone-san beside him. He winks at Eri then whispers something to Shouta-san, of which Eri only hears, “Go with her.”

She can see how he hesitates, how he wants to discuss this further, but Grandma Chiyo declares they can argue later, and Shouta-san’s gaze shifts. He looks at Eri for a long moment, then holds out his hand.

Eri grabs it. Squeezes.

She hopes it helps comfort him.

And together, they walk into a room that, if she understands right, would have been his room…

Totoroki-san’s.

It is small but surprisingly uncrowded, and it is very traditional in decor. A striking difference to the corridor.

The moment they cross the doorway, a white sheet catches her eye. It’s across the room, draped over a shape on a futon—

And a hand is sticking out…

Beside it, there is a woman with long white hair, sitting seiza, holding that hand—

Crying.

Soundless.

Like her grief has knocked even the air from her lungs…

Something grips Eri’s stomach really hard then. Her vision becomes blurry and something bubbles under her skin. Watching the woman’s shoulders as they shake, Eri cannot say she understands this person’s grief but she does know what it’s like to drown in so many tears that even breathing becomes impossible.

It’s something she’s starting to feel right now, actually…

But warmth drops on her head and Eri feels her mind clear a little. She closes her eyes. With Shouta-san beside her, she can breathe easier.

When she opens her eyes again, the woman is still there, still crying—but though no one is comforting her, there are others here too.

In the back of the room, shrouded in shadow, there’s a large, large man with red hair and bandages, towering over everyone. Frowning.

Closer to the crying lady, there’s a younger woman with fogged-up glasses and white and red hair—with a fast-blinking boy beside her. Eri guesses he is her brother.

She looks back at the sheet.

This is a family, she realises. His family…

Suddenly, she feels out of place. She doesn’t know these people, why is she even here, intruding?

A sniffle from behind alerts her that those aren’t the only occupants of the room, and she turns around to find—

“Deku-san!”

Deku-san’s eyes snap open, slumped against the wall next to the door, and his mouth falls. “Eri-chan? What are you…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Eri doesn’t know what he was going to say so she can’t answer. She intends to wait for him to finish his idea but another silhouette catches her eye from beside Deku-san.

“Ain’t it past your bedtime, midget?”

“Bakugou, not now,” Shouta-san cuts in, but Eri waves at Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nii-san. She’s not offended. She likes Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nii-san. He’s direct.

It helps her be direct too.

“I wanted to see Totoroki-san,” Eri declares, and there’s shuffling behind her then, a huff or two.

When she turns around, she finds that the young woman from before has perked up. Eri doesn’t know if she’s looking at her because her glasses are still opaque with some white cloud, but she figures there’s not much else to look at in this room.

Apart from… that sheet.

“Oh, Eri-chan?” she says like she reconizes the name. Eri hopes she does—she hopes Totoroki-san talked about her. She didn’t get to spend much time with him like she did with, say, Deku-san… but she didn’t need to either.

Because Totoroki-san was different.

He was like her.

It was his eyes that had clued her in first—they’d looked old in a way that old age can’t quite replicate. But after that, there had been many others things as well, like how silent he was even while walking, how quietly eager he was to join in on activies and discover things that others had known for a long time.

Totoroki-san got her in a way not even Deku-san or Shouta-san do.

So yes, she hopes he talked about her. She sure liked talking about him.

“Thank you for coming, sweetheart,” the young woman says, and Shouta-san’s hand ruffles Eri’s hair a little. She nods, humming.

“Do you think I could…”

Eri doesn’t finish her sentence but she takes a hesitant step forward. The young woman watches her, then smiles. She takes off her glasses. Her eyes are as watery as her smile. “Of course you can, darling,” she declares.

And with that blessing, Eri crosses the distance towards the sheet. Towards the silent mother.

Towards Totoroki-san.

For some reason, she feels compelled to reach out to him then, to touch him.

She doesn’t know how this happened, this… sheet—but she knows that yesterday he was alive and well. She saw him yesterday.

Looking at the sheet now, at how still it is, the thought seems absurd. How could he have been alive then, and dead now?

It doesn’t make sense.

Here is this crying lady, holding his hand but—but it’s not his hand now is it…

Not anymore.

Because he’s not here…

Totoroki-san is not—

Eri reaches out a shaking hand, lays it on the sheet. Feels a hard leg beneath her palm—cold, unmoving.

He’s not here.

She looks up then, trying to find eyes that could make this make sense because—because it doesn’t.

This isn’t the first death she sees but this one—this one doesn’t make sense.

Her searching eyes settle on the lady across from her whose eyes are forlorn still, drowning in grief. Distantly, she hears the young woman from before talk to her mother, mention Eri’s name, mention letters that talked about her—but the lady’s eyes never leave the surface of the sheet, never acknowledge the words at all.

Eri lets her eyes wander again. She looks at the young woman and her brother, at their paper thin faces. She looks at the large man and his balled up fists. Looks at Deku-san and Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nii-san, sees their slackened expressions.

And on Shouta-san’s stony face, she finds tear tracks.

So when she looks at the sheet, at the frigid shape beneath it…

Her heart flutters in her fingers, climbs her throat and beats until she feels nauseous. There is so much pain here—between Shouta-san’s and Deku-san’s and this silent lady’s—

It’s so much, too much—it makes her feel like she’s going to burst and—

Well…

That’s what she does.

Chapter Text

Katsuki wasn’t there.

When the shot was fired and that self-sacrificial idiot jumped—Katsuki wasn’t there. Not where it mattered.

He only got there after, in time to witness that fountain of scarlet blood pour out his mouth, that awful fucking choking and…

And his eyes—frantic, breathless…

Scared.

Fuck.

Point is, he wasn’t there. He fucking failed.

And there’s nothing in this whole wide world that he can do to make things right, he knows—because he’s no longer some student playing pretend anymore. Mistakes are no longer things that can be glossed over and corrected by studying harder or asking for a grade recount.

No, in this world, mistakes mean consequences.

They mean death.

And Katsuki made a mistake… He wasn’t there, he didn’t see—

(Fuck, his knuckles fucking ache.)

But he’s here now. Call it atonement, guilt—grief—or whatever you will, he is here now and he sure as hell won’t leave. Not when people Icyhot barely knew walk into his room and start wailing more than his mother—not when Endeavour’s arrival somehow manages to freeze the whole entire room—not even when… when the world becomes blurry in Sensei’s arms…

Katsuki failed Todoroki once, he will not fail him again.

And since that halfie bastard’s not here to watch over his family, Katsuki will have to do. He has to.

So he stays.

That’s how he sees that silver midget with star pins in her hair make her way into the room with Sensei’s hand in her hand. It’s because he stays that he sees that flood of emotion in her eyes too—sees how Sensei hovers when she beelines for that… that fucking white sheet.

Fuck.

It’s because he stays that when it happens, he sees it too.

That light.

It happens in a flash: one moment, the sun is falling in the sky with fiery intent—and yet the next, there’s this white glow, blinding and bright, lighting up the room like it’s midday on a snowy landscape.

And his heartbeat spikes.

He doesn’t know what is fucking going on—but also, it doesn’t really matter, does it. He’s here to be here for Todoroki and his family. So that’s what he’ll fucking do.

Keep ‘em safe.

“Get the fuck down!” he exclaims, hands popping as he lunges forward, adrenaline pumping fast—

—but then someone grabs his shoulder, stops him. “Kacchan wait!”

He could bat Deku’s hand away, he reasons—but he knows that Deku, annoyingly enough, always has his reasons for things.

Most of the time, he ends up being right too.

So Kacchan waits.

Sure enough, this time turns out to be one of those instances, because barely has the nerd spoken up that the light abruptly dies down, Sensei’s red eye aglow beside him.

And there’s no enemy in sight.

Only that kiddo, eyes wide and hair askew, looking like she’s just been caught stealing one of Sugar Hulk’s last cookies. A once-over of the room tells him that everyone else looks rattled, yes, but fine—though there’s Halfie’s mom who’s become… uncharacteristically pale.

Katsuki doesn’t know what to make of it.

He’s about to demand answers but before he can even open his mouth, the world jump-starts into action. Sensei’s dad voice comes out first—to admonish the kid no doubt—but then Halfie’s mom yelps like she’s in pain and Katsuki’s moving.

He doesn’t know what for, he just has to make sure Halfie’s mom is ok—

But he doesn’t make it across the room before something—something moves. Barrels through the room, quick and fleeting and—and all Katsuki knows is it’s small and fast and heading for the door—fuck!

Deku’s the one closest to the door, but it seems that shock has dulled his reflexes because he moves like he’s swimming in mollasses, and the something manages to escape without much interference. “Eri wait!” Deku exclaims, looking out the same way the body has run and—yeah, it makes sense actually that it would be the pipsqueak: it’s the same height as her and Sensei didn’t sound too happy about the blinding light she seems to have created, except that—

“I’m… here,” comes her voice, shy and hesitant from behind them. A stunned silence fills the room then, and when Katsuki looks back, he finds her still sitting beside Halfie’s mom—and Halfie’s mom is clutching her own hand close to her chest like she’s been shocked.

The hand she’d been holding onto Halfie with.

And when Katsuki’s eyes catch on the goddamn sheet beside her…

He finds it lying flat in a heap on the floor, the futon uncovered.

Empty.

“What the fuck,” he breathes, incredulous. Furious. Did someone steal his… his fucking body from his mom’s grasp—

“Kacchan!” Deku shouts then, and that’s enough to spur Katsuki into action. He runs out the room on Deku’s heels, hell-bent on recovering Halfie’s body—except that out here in the hallway, there’s a fuckton of students, and parsing through to find something the same size as the twerp seems fucking impossible.

He pushes some girl in black out of his fucking way. If they’re causing a commotion, he doesn’t even register it. “Where did that fucking thief go—”

Something shatters down the hall, and Katsuki’s head swivels round to find one of the large windows of the corridor frosted over and broken, the people around it ducking to protect their faces from the flying glass. He grabs onto Deku’s blazer, dragging him as he pushes through the crowd, shouting at them to make way so he can jump after the fucker who broke the window—

But when he makes it there, Deku gasps and Katsuki’s ears start ringing. Because under the window of broken glass, there’s no thief in sight…

Only ice.

Lots of it too. A whole-ass, familiar-looking ramp dipping down all the way to the ground.

A ramp of fucking ice.

In a sudden flash of clarity, Katsuki thinks…

He thinks—

White light. Silver midget. Empty sheet—

With clenched fists, Katsuki forces his thoughts to fucking stop—and when he grips the side of the window, sharp pain explodes in his palm as glass slices his hand. Focus on that, he thinks, before jumping into the void.

Catch the bastard. Think later.

The asshole’s fast, Katsuki’ll give em that. But UA is a fucking fortress now, one designed to keep things out, yes, but pretty good at keeping them in too. A hundred meter wall will do that.

So when the ice ramps lead him to the outskirts of UA and stop there, Katsuki rushes with a rueful grin, explosions propelling him forward. The shape becomes more distinct as he approaches—small and lean, like a fucking kid—but it seems to reach a conclusion when Katsuki closes in, because a new ramp of ice comes out.

Going upwards.

“Bastard!” Katsuki yells out. “Give him back to me!”

The shape doesn’t answer, only keeps climbing upwards on a tower of ice—so fucking familiar—and Katsuki blasts a frustrated explosion on its base for good measure before jumping up. Deku went another way to try and corner the bastard, but he’s not in sight so it looks like Katsuki’s on his own here.

Not like he can’t manage.

He’s going fast, pressure making his ears pop when he swallows, but the bastard’s going fast too so he can’t afford to slack off. They’re not anywhere close to reaching the top, but slowly, steadily, Katsuki starts gaining some ground, the top of the tower of ice getting closer and closer—

Close enough to catch a glimpse of red on top of it, scarlet—like his (blood) hair—

Focus, Katsuki, he screams in his head.

He’s closing in, and without having to really change his speed too—so the fucker’s getting tired, he reasons. Good. They’re not anywhere close to the top of the barrier and—

Something shoots down right beside him like a rock falling down—and confused, Katsuki looks up at the tower to find that…

It’s stopped moving.

And no one’s on top of it.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” he shouts, looking down to find that spot of scarlet plummeting to the ground. “FUCKING LUNATIC!”

And then he lets himself fall.

Like a fucking lunatic.

He keeps an eye on the bastard as he falls, setting off small explosions to slow his velocity here and then, but the idiot below doesn’t seem pressed to do anything to break his fall which is so fucking stupid and reckless.

If the wind wasn’t forcing his mouth shut, Katsuki’d be screaming the bastard’s head off the whole time.

For a good while, it seems like the idiot’s hell-bent on becoming a pancake flat out on the pavement—but after the longest freefall in the history of freefalls, their non-existent survival instincts seem to manifest and they summon another ramp of ice, one that’s curved like a quarter moon, which—

Yeah, fucking A.

Joke’s on them if they thought they could flee with that stunt, though, because the moment the idiot bastard starts sliding on their ramp, a mesh of Blackwhip comes out of nowhere and catches them like a fly in a net. He can’t see Deku yet, but he’ll admit the nerd’s got timing. Again, Katsuki’d sneer and cheer if the wind from his fall wasn’t like a plug for his lungs, stopping him from getting proper air in.

Arms straining with the strength of the explosions necessary for a smooth-ish landing, Katsuki can’t focus much more on the proceedings below for a time. But when he’s back on solid ground, heaving and sweating buckets, he gulps and readies his stance again. Bastard’s slippery, who knows if Blackwhip’ll contain em, he thinks ruefully…

And then the world tips on its axis.

“Let me go!”

His voice is high-pitched, growling like he’s trying to sound slightly more intimidating than a meowing kitten…

His eyes are wild, familiar, mismatched, scanning for any manner of opening to escape again…

And his hair is askew, wind-blown and mixed together but—

Red and white.

“I’ll fight you every step of the way!” comes that voice again and it sounds—it sounds wrong. Doesn’t fit with the rest of the portrait—it’s not deep enough. He had the deepest voice but this one is just… it sounds like a child’s voice…

Which doesn’t make sense because Halfie was—was, fuck—

Halfie was fucking sixteen—not even seventeen for fuck’s sake—but also, also it does make some kind of sense because this here in front of him, the slippery bastard is…

He’s a child.

Chubby cheeks, big round eyes, skinny body.

Not even a teen, he’s a proper child.

How could he be?

How—

White light, silver midget, empty sheet—

Katsuki wants to speak but the ringing’s back in his ears and he’s suddenly breathless for reasons entirely different than the exertion he’s just gone through. A quick glance up and he finds Deku with eyes wider than he’s ever seen, though their wet sheen is familiar enough and makes the stone in Katsuki’s gut sink even further.

Because this is real.

The chill of the ice this fucking child produces is proof enough, freezing Katsuki to the ground and somehow bringing a sting to his eyes.

“I swear, if you come close, I’ll burn you!”

He sounds scared. Fuck, he sounds terrified—Katsuki should…

Katsuki should do something. Stop standing there like a gaping fish and—

There’s the sound of flames, then footsteps on the pavement come closer and the kid—the fucking slippery bastard kid’s eyes widen as they catch the glow of warm fire, and he stops writhing in his cage of Blackwhip’s tendrils. His face, it’s neither relieved nor happy, just… suddenly blank.

The fight gone from all his muscles—like a puppet with its strings cut.

The kid looks at the new figure that Katsuki can’t even turn towards, and speaks. “Father,” he says, and Katsuki feels like he’s being stabbed all over—just like he’d felt when he’d seen Halfie’s eyes dim yesterday, clouded and bloodied.

He hears a breath catch, balls his fists—the taut scabs over his knuckles fucking ache.

And then Endeavour speaks, voice trembling, unbelieving.

“Shouto?”

Chapter Text

Dry eye.

It is a condition Aizawa Shouta has always had.

He cannot say in good conscience that those words held true today but now, after the commotion in his student’s room has died down and he has caught a proper glimpse of the child they have brought back, alive—

Now, he forces himself to remain dry.

Logical.

He has no time for emotion nor mourning.

Not when the situation has evolved so thoroughly.

There are many things in current circumstances that are consequences of his own inadequacy, so he will make sure to make things right and properly deal with them in a way that brings the least harm to the people involved. He has dispersed the crowds with Principal Nezu’s help—and as for the Todorokis, he has asked them to retreat to their quarters in an adjacent, family housing building. It is cruel, he understands, to separate a mother from her child—especially when she has just lost him…

But this child is his priority now.

No matter his age, he is still his student. And Shouta will protect him with everything he has.

He’s sure there are things that Todoroki Shouto has never told him about his family history, but what he knows for a fact is that his mother poured boiling water on his face, and that he did not see her until after his enrollement at UA. Seeing her now, he doesn’t know how the boy would react…

And he wants to make sure the kid doesn’t feel overwhelmed—which means making sure the odds are on their side.

Rei seemed to understand the necessity, though her tearstained words are still seared in Shouta’s mind. “I will listen, Aizawa-san, but please understand that I will not be made to miss his childhood days another time.” With eyes blazing, you would have thought she was the one with a fire Quirk. And Shouta had agreed—this was temporary, until the child was more stable, less shocked.

He was not in the habit of separating families after all.

It was agreed that neither Fuyumi nor Natsuo would be the first to meet Shouto in this state either, for it seemed he hadn’t been close to them in those days—and seeing them aged would surely bring him distress.

So in some twist of fate, Endeavour had been chosen as the link between past and present, as he hadn’t changed much through the years nor had he ever been separated from Shouto—even though Shouta feels oh-so deeply that he should have.

Looking at him now, the man in question seems to agree with Shouta’s thoughts at least to some extent as his face remains pinched, brows drawn and features etched in stone. Even though he has had to say goodbye to his son today only to find him alive again and younger, Shouta finds he has no compassion to offer him—he cannot. Compartimentalization is his friend now, not sympathy.

So he cuts to the chase.

“We do not know how long this… situation will last,” Shouta begins, “but the boy will not return to your home.” His words a cutting and decisive. Yielding no room for compromise. Because no matter how much Endeavour has changed, he cannot even imagine leaving Shouto in his hands once again, given his history. The man’s eyes flash in what could either be protest or protectiveness, but the emotion quickly passes and he nods, to Shouta’s surprise.

“Yes, I believe it would be best not to,” is what he says.

Shouta hums, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. He’d been expecting a fight. “Good,” he declares. “I will keep watch over him here for the forseeable future until a proper decision is reached as to his care-taking. His mother will no doubt have a say in the matters,” he can’t help but add pointedly.

It is a jab, one he did not intend to throw at a grieving man but… he saw the boy earlier. A bruise on his jaw, dejectedness in his eyes.

And he has no compassion to give.

“There is one thing,” the Number One says haltingly. Shouta hums and waits for the man to find the words. “Shouto…” Endeavour says at last, “he is a bright boy.”

Shouta nods, deadpan. “I’ve noticed.”

“And,” Endeavour continues, “he will not accept being left with anyone unless I tell him it is so. But when I do, he will… he will see that something is off if I… act differently to—”

Shouta sees red.

“You will not harm my student under any circumstances, do I make myself clear.”

It is Endeavour’s turn to frown, as if shocked. “No, I would never—” and he interrupts himself, clearly seeing the irony of his words. He takes a moment to breathe and Shouta realizes his own hands are clenched. He rolls his shoulders once more, unwinds his jaw. “I never want to harm my son again,” is what the man settles on at last.

Shouta forces himself not to answer.

Compartimentalization.

“But,” Endeavour resumes, “I was… harsh with him. Critical, strict, stingy in praise. If we are to tell him that he has been propelled into the future and that he stands amongst giants at UA, I believe some semblance of normalcy where normalcy can be upheld should be kept.”

Something sour settles on Shouta’s tongue then.

In some convoluted way… the logic is sound. He remembers how wary and distrustful Shouto could be. Hearing about a difficult new reality would be more believable if explained by a familiar figure in a… familiar way.

But for all of his personal beliefs, there are times when even Shouta can admit that logic is not the most important decision factor. And safety, he thinks, is one thing he will not compromise for the sake of logic.

“I cannot allow this method, Number One,” he declares then. “We agreed that you will be the one to talk to your son, but you have harmed him long enough. No more.”

A shadow crosses Endeavour’s face, and he tilts his head forward in the closest thing to shame that Shouta has ever seen him wear.

“I have,” he concedes, “But for him to trust you, he must believe in my words. Otherwise he may never let his guard down under your care.” He stops and eyes Shouta for a long moment, before frowning like he’s somehow hurting. “I do not propose this with some twisted desire to inflict pain upon him. You must know, it brings me no joy to even consider this…”

Frankly, Shouta doesn’t know, not when it comes to this man who has bent and twisted the very meaning of what being a father is.

So Shouta remains impassive and Endeavour’s eyes tighten. He looks old. “You will be there, will you not?” he reminds then. “If you find that my words go too far, you can intercede.”

And what a goddamn asshole, handing him a fucking safety switch like that.

“Besides,” he quickly adds, “with a stranger like you present, I would never have been too obvious in my treatment of him back then.”

Something about the admission makes Shouta grimace. Perhaps it’s the blatant acknowledgement of his deceiving methods or the bitterness in the man’s tone, but he cannot shake the putrid taste on his tongue his words bring.

Because his points address both logic and safety.

Fuck.

Letting the boy sit in pain just a little longer in order to save him later—was that not something they'd done before too, when saving Eri? Is there not a logic in doing things gradually, properly, in order to build trust and steer the child towards a better world?

Fuck.

“Endeavour,” Shouta declares then, seething. “I can let strictness pass to a certain degree—but if your words belittle or insult or harm him in any way, you will have my fists to answer to.”

He meant to be dry, emotionless… But it seems the day has wrung out his ability to be any of those things.

In these circumstances, he cannot say it’s a bad thing, though.

Endeavour nods gravely, displaying a dejectedness that is oddly reminiscent of his son’s.

And they both rise, heading for the room next door.

Shouta thought he was ready.

But the moment he slides open the door to the teacher’s lounge and finds blue and grey eyes on him, he feels his facade crack. It’s all he can do not to rush forward and collect the boy in his arms—but he manages, forces himself to manage because those eyes, wide and alive, they are wary.

Not an ounce of recognition in them.

Something pinches at his chest because on top of that they look old, those eyes, older than the chub of his cheeks or the build of his body would suggest. Rigidly, Shouto stands up when they step in, and Shouta smooths out his features in a bid to appear approachable. He knows he has a resting bother-me-and-you’ll-regret-it face, and he doesn’t want Shouto to be subjected to it.

“Shouto,” Endeavour’s booming voice fills the room then, and he sounds exactly as he said he would—strict, harsh.

Punchable.

“Hello Father,” the boy nods, stiff. He looks so composed, like he didn’t just freefall an hour earlier in a desperate attempt to escape what he probably thought was a kidnapping attempt… It’s so strange seeing him like this, like a perfect statue carved in stone and stoicism. Shouta hates it.

Endeavour walks ahead, gesturing towards Shouta then. “This man is Aizawa Shouta.” When Shouta receives a nod from the boy, the Number One’s voice resounds, annoyed. “Out loud, boy.”

“Hello Aizawa-san,” Shouto mutters quickly, sending a fleeting glance to Shouta’s face before settling back on his father, like he must keep the man in his sights at all times.

Shouta nods, choked up at hearing that voice so light yet heavy at once. “Hi kid,” he manages to say evenly, then strolls forward so he can join the boy on the other side of the kotatsu where he’s standing. The teachers’ lounge is not the best place for a child to sit and wait alone in, he acknowledges, but Shouta couldn’t think of another place that would be quiet and private for such a conversation…

The boy doesn’t sit until both adults are settled, and he keeps his eyes on Endeavour at all times. No one says anything for a long long time, so Shouta turns towards the man himself to see what’s holding him up—and he understands the silence in one glance.

He’s in a turmoil. Emotional.

Very well, Shouta will take matters into his own hands then. Protect the kid from unnecessary harsh words.

“I am a teacher here at UA,” he begins with, thinking it a good idea to tell the kid where he is. When mismatched eyes widen marginally, Shouta doesn’t manage to fight the smile off his face. He looks so young, impressionable. “I am also known as the Underground Pro Hero Eraserhead,” he continues, and just like with a switch, the light in those eyes turns off.

Shouta doesn’t like it. But he takes note of it. For later.

For now, though, they have news to break to him. So he will start from the beginning. “What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?” he asks as kindly as he can.

The boy’s eyes dart to Endeavour yet again, like he’s not sure what he can say exactly—or if he can talk at all… He hesitates a long moment, but Endeavour says nothing so he turns back to Shouta, brow knit. “Home,” is what he says. Which is a pretty undescriptive answer, but Shouta takes it.

“Waking up here must’ve been quite a shock, then,” he says as empathetically as he can, and the boy’s eyebrows scrunch up, like he’s not sure if he should agree or not. Seeing him hesitate so much when the Shouto he knows hardly ever did makes Shouta angry, of all things, but he keeps a lid on it. He wants to avoid any misunderstandings, the boy’s probably not old enough to understand the true reason behind his emotion.

That thought brings something to mind, though. Something essential. “How old are you Shouto?”

“Eight and three months,” comes his answer.

And dammit, he’s barely older than Eri.

Half the age of his Shouto.

“Listen boy, time is short and I will not repeat myself,” suddenly comes Endeavour’s voice, striking like thunder on a silent night. Shouto somehow straightens his back even more in response, a perfect statue—and Shouta clenches his jaw. “The yesterday you remember is not the same as the one that I do. A lot of time has passed since then, and in today’s time, you are sixteen, a student at UA.”

And dead.

Endeavour pauses then as if he has had that same intrusive thought and needs to choke down his emotion. Shouta distracts himself from his by watching the boy’s reaction—carefully smooth face, betrayed by widened eyes. He doesn’t look like he understands. Which, frankly, Shouta cannot fault him for, with an explanation as unclear as that. The boy doesn’t ask questions though and Endeavour simply keeps talking.

“A Quirk is what made you eight again,” he says. “But everyone you know is eight years older than the versions of them that you remember, do you understand?”

The boy nods immediately and Shouta has a feeling it’s more of an automatic reaction than an indication of his understanding. He looks too confused for it to be anything else.

“In other words,” he quickly butts in, ignoring the glare Endeavour sends him for the interruption, “it’s like you’ve been sent eight years in the future.” Blue and grey eyes watch him and Shouta likes to imagine he sees some of the confusion dissipating. The child nods again and Shouta gives him an eye-smile in response.

“Yes,” Endeavour agrees in a clipped tone, sending Shouta a pointed look. For a grieving man, he is playing his role wonderfully well.

“Things have changed since then,” Endeavour continues, intense gaze settling back on his son, “and my responsibilities as a hero make it so that I cannot watch over you at the present. Aizawa here is your older self’s homeroom teacher and he has graciously accepted to take care of you for now.”

The wording Endeavour uses grates on Shouta’s ears, as it makes Shouto sound like an inconvenience to both his teacher and his own father—but the boy doesn’t seem fazed by it at all. He hardly moves and inch, face perfectly blank. It’s frightening how little of himself he gives away, even at eight years of age.

“You have a question,” Endeavour declares then, and Shouta has no idea where he sees the question on the boy’s marble-like face…

But the child hardly skips a beat. “How long will you be gone?”

“Indefinitely.”

The exchange is clipped and to the point, impersonal yet easy in a strange way. Like both parties know exactly which roles they play. It is surprising, seeing Shouto interact with his father in a way so different to what Shouta is used to seeing—no animosity or defiance, only military obedience.

And fear.

The boy hides it well, but Shouta can see it this time, the fear cracking the marble on his face. It’s in the set of his jaw, the way he blinks. His father’s answer has set him on edge and Shouta doesn’t know why. He wants to know, but asking in front of Endeavour might not make the boy forthcoming, he thinks.

“I will answer one more question and then I must leave,” Endeavour declares. “Speak up.”

The boy’s eyes flick to Shouta’s face once more, like he’s hesistating—but he quickly looks back to his father.

“What about training?”

His voice is timid, like he’s expecting an admonishement, and Shouta’s stomach drops. The famous training. He remembers Dabi’s words in his broadcast, and the practiced ease with which Shouto moved in their Quirk training classes. Hearing him talk now of training is not a surprise, but an ugly reminder of all the things he had gone through.

In response, though, Endeavour only sighs and looks at his watch. “Training will be put on hold,” he declares distractedly as he stands up, swatting the matter away like one would a fly. But once he’s on his feet and his son has followed his example, he stops abruptly, like something has blocked the cogs in his brain. He turns towards Shouta then like he’s asking for help.

It takes Shouta only a moment to understand.

For better or for worst, training is part of this young boy’s routine, and stopping it abruptly might unsettle him. The level of intensity he is used to is definitely out of the question, but a healthy dose of physical activity every day is not out of the question for a growing boy such as him.

So Shouta quickly makes his decision. “If you want, I can arrange some light sport within reason. Running laps or soccer, that kind of thing. Would that be ok?”

The boy’s eyes positively light up at the mention of soccer, but he schools his features in a flash and Shouta clenches his fists at the need he feels to hide his feelings all the time.

What the fuck did Endeavour do to this kid. He is eight for god’s sake.

“Mm, I suppose that would be satisfactory,” is what the man in question answers, and he straightens up his kimono. That’s when Shouta realizes that none of them had changed out of their funeral garb between then and meeting the boy now. Dammit, that must’ve confused him so much.

There’s nothing they can do about that now, though.

Endeavour makes to leave, but hesitates and does some aborted move then, like he wants to reach out to his son and… who knows really? Ruffle his hair? Hug him? The sentiment makes sense considering the context, but it stops to matter when the child suddenly becomes as rigid as a wooden plank, fear in the cracks of his mask. His father sees it too, evidently, as he stops in his tracks.

And his face crumbles under the weight of it all.

To some extent, Shouta can sympathize with his pain… But he also can’t help the bitter, “You did this,” he thinks then.

Besides, Endeavour is not his priority.

Shouto is.

So when the silence stretches over this stalemate, Shouta decides to intervene. “Please contact me before dropping by, Endeavour,” he says, both as a warning to the man and a reassurance to the child. “I will take good care of your son in the meantime.”

Endeavour nods, turmoil still aparent on his face. It’s clear he wants to say something, but he wisely doesn’t. Only watches them both for another moment before heading for the door.

And just like that, Shouta is left with this eight-year-old boy staring blankly at him with eyes both familiar and strange.

The complexity of the situation threatens to crush him in that instant, and he knows he has his work cut out for him—on top of acquiring another child, he will have to have a good long talk with Recovery Girl for involving Eri in the first place, get Nezu involved, deal with the Todoroki family’s grief and happiness…

And protect all of his students’ emotional wellfare as well…

It is a hefty responsibility.

But all of those things, he thinks, will be worth it.

If he can give Shouto a chance at shedding this cursed mask he wears still...

If he can give Shouto the steady feeling of security and comfort that no one has in his short life…

It will have been worth it.

Chapter Text

Shouto doesn’t know what to think.

On the one hand, he remembers falling asleep in his futon yesterday—and he knows he’s a light sleeper so he doesn’t think he would’ve slept through ‘being transported into the future’…

But on the other hand, he doesn’t think Father has enough imagination to invent an explanation like that. It’s too far-fetched and it brings him no benefit, as far as Shouto can see.

Which all just makes for a… very confusing situation.

Oh, and there’s also the question of that shabby old eyepatch hero in kuromofuku. Shouto doesn’t know what to think about him either… His first instinct is to keep him at arm’s length—he’s a hero, after all, and one Father trusts enough to keep watch over Shouto in his absence…

But he also told Father off.

Said that Shouto could play soccer too.

And Shouto, he wants to play soccer. Ever since he watched Fuyumi-nee and Natsuo-nii and Touya-nii in the courtyard playing, he’s wanted to try playing too. He doesn’t really know if it was soccer they were playing then but he knows it was a game with a ball so it might as well have been.

That said, Shouto isn’t stupid enough to trust the first person to defend him and promise him nice things. People aren’t nice without reason, after all, that’s not how they work. No, people want things and they will do anything to anyone in order to get what they want.

That is simply just fact.

And since Shouto doesn’t know what this Eraserhead wants, he can neither trust his words nor his tired-looking eye.

Frankly, there are many unsettling aspects to this whole situation… And strangely enough, Shouto finds that he’d rather be back in the halls of that house than here—if only for the familiarity of it all…

But he cannot leave. Father wants him here… Besides, he’s seen the giant wall surrounding this place, has seen that angry dandelion man protecting it—and he didn’t manage to outrun him…

So he has no choice.

For the forseeable future, he is at the mercy of this Eraserhead hero whether he wants to be or not. So he will scope him out, learn how he gets when he is angry so he can avoid the brunt of it, and he will wait for things to go back to normal.

Because they will, he knows. They always do.

“Are you hungry, kid?” Eraserhead asks from across the kotatsu, breaking the silence in the room.

Shouto frowns, caught off guard. “What time is it?” he retorts, confused—before he realizes his mistake. He should never answer a question with another question. That’s just deflection, Father hates it. But… Eraserhead’s was a weird question too. Whether Shouto eats or not isn’t something that’s determined by stomach noises, but by time. By a schedule.

Did Father not give him the schedule?

Eraserhead seems to buffer for a second, but strangely enough doesn’t mention the question-question situation. He just looks down at his phone. “Nine thirty-two PM,” he says evenly, and Shouto tries to mask his surprise at being answered at all. But then he realizes that… it’s after eight.

Oh. That’s too late.

Frustration simmers in his stomach. How could he have missed supper? He just woke up—

Oh, right… ‘Time travel’.

It’s unfortunate, he thinks, that something so out of his control would make it so that he won’t eat tonight. But it doesn’t really matter, he’ll eat tomorrow. He’s been hungrier before.

“You know,” Eraserhead says then, something strange and light in his voice, “I make a mean curry rice.” His face shifts into a face that Shouto doesn’t really understand, like maybe he’s trying to scare him by showing teeth? He can’t be sure…

Nor can he be sure of his meaning. How could curry rice be mean? It doesn’t make sense. But he doesn’t want to make the man angry so, trying to sound unfazed, Shouto says, “Ok.”

Eraserhead frowns then and Shouto’s heart stumbles on a step. Did he say something wrong?

“If you want,” the hero continues before Shouto can even form a plan of action, “I could make some for you tonight.”

And it’s Shouto’s turn to frown. “I missed supper time,” he remarks simply.

“So did I,” the hero counters, still unfazed. “But it’s not too late that eating would give me heartburn for the night and you must be pretty hungry so I don’t see a problem.”

I do, Shouto wants to answer, but he feels like he’d be testing the man’s patience—so he says nothing.

Besides… he is hungry. Why shoot himself in the foot?

Eraserhead hesitates for a moment before rising to his feet. He looks like he wants Shouto to do the same, so Shouto does and receives a once-over in return. It’s then that he realizes that… oh, he’s still barefoot and in his sleepwear, isn’t he? What a pair they must make: a hero in funeral garb and a boy in pyjamas. He’s glad no one is there to see (and frankly he’s shocked Father didn’t even comment on his clothes…)

But if they leave this room, surely people will see—and it seems Eraserhead reaches the same conclusion because he looks around the room. “Hold on, kid, I’ll find you something to wear. It’s best if we keep this situation under wraps…” With those words, he launches off into the room while Shouto just stands, watching him go. The hero looks around a bit between the many desks in the room, and when he comes up empty-handed, he tells him to wait here and exits the room.

So Shouto waits.

Before, he’d been too occupied with dread to really take in his surroundings but now, he starts to notice things more.

(Absentmindedly, he realizes how his wrist has started throbbing again, so he rolls it while looking around the room.)

There are a lot of desks in this teachers’ lounge, for one, with computers that are much smaller than the one he’d seen once in Natsu-nii’s room. Lots of paper strewn about too, with little pops of colour added onto the different desks—a figurine of a hero in crimson, a red eye mask, goggles. Unimportant stuff really. At the back of the room, there’s a blackboard that catches his eye though, the words ‘We love you teach!’ scribbled in white chalk between hasty drawings of hearts.

It makes him wonder…

If it’s true—if he really was older, and this Eraserhead hero really was his homeroom teacher…

Would he have thought to write something like that to him?

The thought almost makes him laugh. He’s never even liked a teacher before. (Untrue.) Teachers don’t care—adults don’t care. It’s no use getting attached or confiding in them, they just like keeping face so they can present well. They’ll exchange surface-level pleasantries to make you want to write things like ‘We love you teach!’ when things are going well, but when they turn sour—they won’t be there.

Shouto doesn’t know Eraserhead, but he’s sure that’s how he operates too.

Like every other teacher he’s ever had.

It’s on that thought that the door slides open and the hero in question comes back, blue slippers and a light green hoodie in hand with… bunny ears on top. “I don’t think this is your style,” is the first thing he says, “but my daughter has grown quite fond of bunnies and it’s the first thing I found that would fit you.” He hands out the garment to Shouto and Shouto doesn’t really know what to make of the situation, it’s a little absurd. But it’s pretty clear Eraserhead wants him to put the hoodie on so he does. It’s not like it’ll hurt him, after all. The moment he slides it on, one thought echoes in his head.

Soft.

And he leaves it at that.

Eraserhead arranges the hood so it covers his hair and Shouto stays very, very still—after which he hands him that pair of light blue slippers he brought that are too big, and then they leave the room together. He is told to stay close to the hero so he does, and pays attention to the turns they take in the long, blue corridors they walk down. Knowing how to find his way around can only benefit him down the road, he thinks.

Sometimes, they cross people in the halls, at which point Eraserhead will walk in some strange way as if to hide him—but otherwise the trek is pretty uneventful. He leads him down the stairs, then loans him too-small loafers to walk outside to a large building with, “Teacher’s Alliance,” written in bold letters upon an arch.

“You’ll be staying in my apartment,” Eraserhead declares when they’re standing side-by-side in the elevator of the building, the fourth floor button glowing bright red. Shouto hums to show he’s listening, then remembers how Father hates when he doesn’t properly answer so he forces himself to word a verbal agreement. The doors open and the hero beckons him outside. “I live with my daughter, Eri. She’s seven years old and—”

“Shouta-san!”

The new voice is high-pitched and squeaky, and Shouto jumps, but he doesn’t have the time to dread Eraserhead’s anger at being interrupted that something hits the hero’s midriff, making him stumble. Shouto’s muscles tense in response, he spreads his feet and calls for ice on his arm but—

He hears sniffles.

And stops.

“I’m so sorry Shouta-san, I lost control, I just didn’t know what to do and I thought that I could make things better if I just tried, but I didn’t think things through and now I made a mess! But Deku-san says you found him with Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight nii-san! Is he ok?”

The words are hurried and frantic, and Shouto can’t say he understands their meaning but he hears fear in them so he remains alert and observes the speaker. It’s a kid, he realizes, a girl with silver hair tied into a ponytail. He can’t see her face but she’s probably his height, if a little shorter.

It must be Eri, he thinks.

Eraserhead’s daughter.

And she’s scared.

That fact alone is enough to confirm Shouto’s earlier assessment of the hero—that he cannot be trusted.

He watches them attentively as Eraserhead starts talking to his daughter in hushed tones, and it is only after he watches him stroking her silver hair with no imminent signs of aggression that he notices something.

Which is that they look nothing alike.

(From what he’d seen through the window at home, Touya-nii had looked thin and scrawny and nothing like dad either though, so he guesses it’s not such uncommon thing?)

There’s something else as well: isn’t it strange that she calls him by his name? Father would give him bruises if he tried that at home, he thinks.

A noise from down the hall catches his attention and his eyes jump to its source, making sure to keep the father-daughter duo in sight at all times. A door is open down the corridor, he notices then, and in front of it there is a boy—a taller one, with wild green hair and watery green eyes, standing with his mouth like an ‘O’ and his eyebrows up to his hairline.

He’s seen this one before, Shouto remembers. When he was trying to escape. This is the one who’d made that green web that had caught him. It’s an interesting Quirk, he thinks, but if the boy had managed to use it so freely without being sanctioned, then it must mean that he is a hero. Or a hero student, judging by his uniform.

Which means he also cannot be trusted.

That makes two heroes he has to track in such an enclosed space and he feels his shoulders tense up once again. He cannot let his guard down, especially when there’s another kid who might be in need of protection.

“Todoroki-kun,” the boy whispers with a wobbly smile and Shouto can’t help but scowl at the name—because that’s not his name. The green man’s words, however, catch Eri’s attention and she whirls around to look at Shouto with eyes that take up half of her face.

“You’re here! But you’re my age… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring you back like this. Are you okay?” she says this like she’s about to start crying, but then Eraserhead rests a hand on her head and the tears thankfully stay only on the brim of her eyes.

Her emotions are so palpable, though, that Shouto suddenly feels…

Overwhelmed.

He can’t find his voice.

It’s weird, this feeling. They don’t happen to him often, those moments where his voice seems to have run away from him, but it’s not unfamiliar either. It’s just that there are so many new things happening one after the other right now and suddenly he just… can’t make any sense out of it. He’s never been outside of his house for so long without Father’s supervision and he knows there are things Father doesn’t want him to say but with all of these different things happening one after the other and these new people who seem to know him popping up everywhere, it’s so distracting that it makes him forget how he’s supposed to act, who he’s supposed to be.

And he doesn’t like it.

What happens next is… frankly a little blurry in his memory. He remembers hearing Eraserhead’s voice, a name he can’t place, then footsteps walking away… The next thing he knows, he’s sitting on a chair, in front of a table that’s burried under piles of paper, with Eraserhead’s back to him.

And something smells good. Garlic, beef and something else, like roux?

His mouth waters, his stomach growls.

A kitchen, he thinks. He’s in a kitchen…

And he feels shame spread under his skin. Did he space out again? He’s glad the other two aren’t there anymore—the girl and the boy, they were sort of intense… But he knows better than to get distracted, especially in an unfamiliar place surrounded by unfamiliar people. If Father were here—

But he’s not here, is he.

No, it’s Eraserhead who is, and Shouto doesn’t know how he’ll react to his little lapse in attention. He’s not sure he wants to find out.

The thought has barely formed that Eraserhead turns back towards him from his place in front of the stove, and Shouto tenses up. “Hi kid,” he says lightly—perhaps even patiently… Shouto doesn’t know what to do with that so he ignores it. Waits for his punishment.

It doesn’t come.

“You’re in my apartment now. The kitchen,” Eraserhead says, nodding towards the counter around him. There’s a lot of colourful things to look at that are strewn about on the different flat surfaces of the room but Shouto doesn’t want to keep his eyes off the man so he doesn’t. “Curry rice’ll be ready in—” he checks his phone again, “—seven minutes. How are you feeling?”

Owlishly, Shouto blinks at him. Who asks questions like that?

Still, questions need answers, yes? Father taught him that at an early age.

“Well,” is what he answers. His voice cracks when he uses it, but he uses it and that’s what matters.

Eraserhead eyes him for a long moment, one that makes his heart beat fast in his ears and blood rushing in his veins. Was his answer not good enough? Right, Father always says to answer in full sentences, how could he have forgotten?

“How about I give you a tour of the place until the food is ready?”

The interruption is abrupt, and Shouto barely has the time to nod numbly that the man lets go of the ladle in his hand and wipes his hands on his apron, beckoning Shouto forward. All Shouto thinks is, “He got changed,” before he’s on his feet and following the hero around. On his back, the hoodie is too hot and he’s sweating, but he can’t disgrace the hero any more than he has tonight. He has to listen to him.

And he wanted Shouto to wear the hoodie, right? Wants Shouto to follow him around.

So he does both.

The place isn’t big by any standards, he thinks, and there is nothing traditional about its decor either. There’s a small living room with a yellow couch, lamps and a rug—a dining table, where there is really just one spot devoid of paper so they can eat—a small bathroom where a shower curtain with flower prints hangs—and bunny slippers outside a closed door. “This is Eri’s room,” Eraserhead explains, standing before the slippers, “so please don’t go in unless she says it’s ok.”

Shouto wasn’t planning on going anywhere unless he was told it’s ok, but he still nods.

The hero seems pleased and beckons him through another door. “This is my room,” he says then as he switches the light on. And frankly, there’s not much in there: white walls, black covers, a bed and a bedside table, with yellow blackout curtains. There’s a picture of three grinning boys on the table, a charger beside the bed and a wooden desk with some more paper on top, but that’s pretty much it.

It’s simple.

Not at all like the rooms in his house. No, this place is plain and small—but practical. Lived-in.

It looks comfortable.

“You can have this room,” the hero declares then, and Shouto can’t hide his surprise at those words. He sees the hero smile down at him and Shouto can’t help the scowl that forms on his face.

“Why would you do that,” he demands, then tells himself to calm down—he doesn’t want to push the hero’s buttons, he reminds himself. It’s just…

It doesn’t make sense.

This is his place, his room, his food, his time. Why is he doing all this?

And for a kid he doesn’t even know?

Eraserhead’s face smooths out and he crouches on the floor so that Shouto’s looking down at him—but that only makes Shouto’s temper flare even more. Because who does he think he is? Why is he trying so much?

“Because I said I’d take care of you,” is the man’s answer. Then, “You take the bed kid, I like the couch better.”

He says this like it’s the most simple thing in the world. And Shouto…

He hates it.

It doesn’t make sense.

Why is this happening? Why was Shouto brought to the supposed future—why does this hero treat him with kindness—why did Father suddenly leave and hand him to of some hero he’d never heard about bef—

But then something clicks.

Father asked him to do this didn’t he?

Oh he’s so stupid, how didn’t he think of this earlier? The hero must be getting paid too, to look after him while Father’s gone. Father probably even asked him to test Shouto, see if he’ll react properly and according to his training when he’s not being watched.

It makes so much sense—explains why the man asked him if he was hungry, why he said he’d give him food even outside of his schedule, why he seemed to gloss over Shouto not paying attention for a while.

He’s not here to punish Shouto, he’s here to collect data.

To tell on him.

Oh. Oh, he really messed up, didn’t he. Father will be so mad once he comes back from indefinitely. He doesn’t want to think about the training that will come when he learns about Shouto’s mistakes. And he has made so many in such a short amount of time—how many more will he make?

He doesn’t want to find out.

But what he knows is that of the mistakes he’s made today, there is one he can fix right now.

So he will.

“I’m not hungry,” he declares. When he looks up, he sees confusion on the hero’s face, and it looks convincing—but he doesn’t let himself be fooled. He knows the rules. “It’s too late to eat. It’s time for bed.”

Eraserhead frowns. “Kid, you had a big day, I’m sure you must be hungry.”

“It’s too late to eat,” Shouto repeats, resolute. His stomach pangs but at least, Father won’t be able to say he derogated from the schedule.

The hero looks like he wants to say something, but the smell of something just this side of burnt starts to waft through the door and he looks at the kitchen, alarmed. “Ok, I’ll be right back, kid,” he says, then adds somewhat hurriedly, like it’s something worth mentioning, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to here, ok kid?”

And he stands up to walk hurriedly to the kitchen, leaving Shouto in his room.

Shouto scans the room once more then, and his eyes catch on the frame of the bed. The hero told him to take his bed but…

His first instinct tells him that he shouldn’t—he’s only a kid, not important enough to displace a man from his own bed… But also, when he thinks back to it, he remembers how the hero said, “You take the bed kid.” Isn’t that an order? If he doesn’t follow that order, then isn’t he disobeying?

And if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that Father hates disobedience more than anything.

So he should then. He should sleep in the eyepatch hero’s bed, at least for tonight. Maybe tomorrow the man will grow tired and tell him to sleep on the couch—and Shouto will do that too because that’s what Father would want.

Yes, that’s what he’ll do.

Resolute, Shouto moves to close the door, flicks the light off and follows the thin moonlight seeping through the curtains to shuffle to the bed. Methodically, he sits down, takes off his slippers and rolls into bed to lie on his back. The mattress is hard under his back so it’s not too foreign a sensation compared to his futon at home.

But it’s different enough for him to be uncomfortable.

Still, it doesn’t matter much because he has to take the bed.

A knock comes on the door and Eraserhead cracks it open when Shouto responds. A plume of light shines in from the kitchen and the smell of delicious food flies through, making his stomach rumble—but that doesn’t matter. The silhouette of the hero leans on the doorway, arms crossed, and a few seconds of silence pass where Shouto feels like something glued to a slide under a microscope.

But it’s not too long before the hero hums.

“You must be tired,” he says thoughtfully, and Shouto says nothing because frankly, he isn’t really. But that doesn’t matter either. The hero looks back at the kitchen and pushes off the doorway. “Very well, I’ll keep the curry rice for tomorrow—you get some sleep, alright kid?”

“Yes,” Shouto answers rigidly.

And the man hums again. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask, I’ll be on the couch right next door.”

“Yes,” Shouto agrees again.

“Right,” Eraserhead says. He hovers for a few seconds more in awkward silence, then begins closing the door saying, “Sleep well kiddo.”

And that’s how Shouto ends up in the room of a stranger in some strange appartment from the future, looking up at the ceiling, at the shades of grey that dance on it in the night—and wondering if he’ll survive this new world with its new dangers until he’s made to go back home again…

A shadow catches his eye on the ceiling—it dances like the flames of Father’s beard when he gets angry.

And that night, despite Eraserhead’s order…

Shouto does not sleep well.

Chapter Text

Izuku wakes up gasping.

He needs to wash his hands. Dammit, he—he needs to wash his hands. They’re red, his hands—red and cold and sticky and—and he needs to wash them and—

But wait, no, right now he should—he should do something actually, his hands are red because Todoroki’s—he’s bleeding. Fuck, there’s blood in his lungs and he’s choking, gasping, drowning in Izuku’s arms and on his hands and on his watch—

Fuck. Fuck—he needs to do something. He has to do something! Todoroki’s eyes are wild and afraid—Izuku’s never seen them so wild, so afraid—and he’s got to do something—he has to—

“Breathe, idiot!”

Izuku blinks. Does he? Have to breathe? Will that help Todoroki? Can Izuku breathe for Todoroki? Is that how he can save him?

How he should have saved him?

Two stones—one gray, one blue—come into view, and Izuku knows his answer—knows he’ll never be able to. No matter how many breaths he takes, no matter how much willpower and wishful-thinking he pours into every breath he takes, he’ll never be able to save him.

To save Shouto.

Because he didn’t.

“Fuck’s sake.”

Something warm encases him, suddenly. Something solid. Smelling oddly like mint. A little sweet too. It’s kind of familiar, this casing—cuts the fog of his mind like an arrow through the wind.

Sharp. Strong. Single-minded.

“Kacchan?”

“Damn right, fucker. Now do some fucking legwork yourself and unscramble your damn brains, Deku. Was a fucking dream.”

These words, they’re harsh, rough against his skull. Rough enough to resonate into his thoughts.

Unscramble your damn brains.

He’d like to. Frankly, he thinks he might need to too. But…

“How?” Izuku chokes out. He blinks. Around him, it’s dark, but a streak of moonlight casts the room in a familiar haze—and just then, he starts to think that he might have an inkling of how.

This is his room, he tells himself. Not an alley.

This is his bed. Not asphalt.

This is Kacchan. Not—

With a jolt, his hands are gripped firmly. “For starters,” Kacchan bites, harsh, “you can stop scratching your fucking hands raw—”

He says this like he’s said it before. Has he? Izuku looks down, finds that the moonlight on his hands contours scabs and abrasions. Thin streaks of red, thin lines of blood.

Blood on his hands.

Huh.

Maybe Kacchan has—said this before, that is.

But his hands—Izuku needs to wash them. He needs to scrub off the red caked underneath his fingernails and trapped in the divots of his hands—the red no one else can see, yet that Izuku knows is there because he can still feel it there—

“Fuck it!” Kacchan exclaims, sounding aggravated. He shoots up, huffs loudly, throws a fuzzy hoodie onto Izuku’s head.

“Get up Deku, we’re going for a run.”

It’s early out. Early—or late, he doesn’t really know… The fact is it’s dark out, and Izuku is glad for it. Dark means no crowds, no questions, none of that suffocating concern their well-meaning classmates smother him in.

Yeah… dark is good.

By now, his hands are cold. Stinging. He should’ve worn gloves, maybe, because the cold settles into his shattered-then-reconstructed bones like fog on a river—but he keeps at it, keeps running even if it hurts.

It’s fine if it hurts.

“Keep thinking so fucking loud Deku and I’ll trip you.”

Izuku huffs, watches Kacchan pick up the pace, and follows his lead through the conifer trail around UA. The wind zips through his hair, cools his mind, and Izuku focuses on Kacchan’s back as he runs behind him.

Kacchan.

He looks just like he always does when they cross paths on their morning runs—focused, powerful, put-together. How. How can he look like that? How can he be like that when Izuku can barely put a foot in front of the other, can barely breathe through the frigid cold that’s settled deep in his lungs and his bones ever since—

He slows down—jogs, walks, stops.

Kacchan stops too, after a few more paces.

“The fuck? I didn’t say we were stopping—”

“Kacchan…”

Izuku looks up, interrupting him. He looks angry, Kacchan, his brows drawn together and his jaw clenching, muscles taut and breath puffing—but he doesn’t explode in Izuku’s face, and Izuku is a bit put off by that. Kacchan’s kindness is… well Izuku doesn’t know how it works yet, doesn’t know its shape nor its limits, and he doesn’t want to test it either…

But also, he needs to know.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What, running?”

He’s being dense. On purpose. “No,” Izuku huffs. His eyes well up, he blinks, frustrated. “Why are you helping me.”

It’s phrased as a question, but they both hear it for the accusation that it is. Why is Kacchan watching out for him? Why is he sticking by him, camping in his room, talking him through nightmares, hugging him even…

When it’s all Izuku’s fault.

“I killed—”

“Shut the fuck up, idiot, you didn’t kill shit,” Kacchan bites, unforgiving. “Halfie had a whole-ass bullet in his lung, for fuck’s sake. Only a thoracic surgeon could’ve saved him. Or fucking Edgeshot, I guess. But neither you nor me could’ve. Don’t mean we killed him.”

He supposes it’s logical, yeah. Except that Kacchan doesn’t know about Izuku’s Danger Sense—he doesn’t know that in that fraction of a second before Todoroki’d jumped, Danger Sense had pinged and Izuku had known something bad was going to happen… But he didn’t do anything. He’d just stood there like a damn plant and—

And suddenly, the world tips over, gravel digs into his hands, and Izuku’s on the floor. “Wha—”

“I did fucking warn you,” Kacchan grunts from overhead, peering down at him with contempt as he straightens his posture. “You keep thinking, I trip you.”

“But… I wasn’t even running,” Izuku counters, dazed.

“So?”

And Kacchan starts running again.

When the ice tower comes into view, the first rays of sunlight have started glinting off its surface. It looks surreal, the tower, standing there in the middle of a forest next to their school, completely out of place and out of logic—but no one has come to clean it up yet so it stands there, tall and strong nonetheless.

Looking at it from up close again, Izuku feels… well he doesn’t know how he feels. Empty, maybe? Lost?

He doesn’t really know.

So he looks to Kacchan instead, tries to gauge how he’s feeling. Maybe that’ll help him parse through his own thoughts.

Kacchan runs up to the foot of the tower, his skull T-shirt and grey shorts rippling with the harshness of his movements, and then he stops to look up at it like it’s personally offended him. His shoulders droop, his mouth slackens as he peers at its top—and he’s quiet. Hard to read. Izuku runs up to stand next to him, and when he looks up as well, he can almost make out that shape that had come hurtling to the ground yesterday, can almost feel how erratically his heart had beat at the sight of that shape falling to its death—

Only for that shape to end up being Todoroki, alive and well and so so young.

“Fuck.”

Izuku’s eyes snap to Kacchan, catch the way sunlight outlines his frame, the red tip of his ears, the drop of his Adam’s apple as he gulps.

Izuku swallows thickly himself.

None of this has been easy for anyone, Izuku knows, but with the way Kacchan carries himself, it’d be easy to forget that he’s affected by it at all. After all, to anyone not really looking, one might think that Kacchan and Todoroki couldn’t stand each other. They’d had this weird, antagonizing rivalry where Kacchan would seek to provoke Todoroki at every turn, and where Todoroki would ignore anything Kacchan related with award-winning pettiness—and yeah, maybe that’s how it had been between them, once… But with time, extenuating circumstances and effort on each part, that strange dynamic of constant challenges and confrontations had become the very root from which respect and recognition somehow grew. And within that chaos, it turned out they were actually a great pair—that they understood each others’ struggles and motivations on some profound, unspoken level, that they pushed each other to pursue their goals…

That they gave each other purpose.

So there’s no way that Izuku’ll fall into the trap of thinking that Kacchan is in any way indifferent to everything that happened.

But also, Izuku wouldn’t ever do him the disservice of pointing it out. Because despite how loud and abrasive he is, Kacchan is one of the most private people Izuku knows. So to offer his own kind of kindness and privacy, Izuku looks away from him—and focuses on the tower instead, reaches a hand to it.

He wants to wash it, his hand. It’s red and sticky and—

The cold makes the muscles in his palm quiver, twitch and ache, but it grounds him too. Confirms that this is real—that those guarded, blue and grey eyes peering up at him from next to Aizawa-sensei and Eri-chan were real.

This is real.

“Kacchan,” Izuku says after a time, his heart aching, reaching out, “what do we do now.”

Kacchan snorts. It sounds a bit wet. “You mean once we get a fucking break from all this Todoroki drama whiplash?”

His voice is cruel but it sounds heavy too, so Izuku doesn’t retort. He just waits, feels the ice melt under his hand, under the heat of his palm.

“Well fuck, I guess we got work to do,” Kacchan declares at last. “Fucking One Fourth kiddo’s a-waitin.”

Morning finds Izuku standing alone in his room, holding onto an All Might figurine as if it had offended him. It hasn’t, of course. This figurine is the first one Izuku’s ever owned—Mom offered it to him after he’d gotten a shot at the doctor’s office without crying a single tear. He was four, but he remembers it perfectly, how proud he’d been of himself, how Mom had held him all tight and ruffled his hair, how she’d grabbed his hand and brought him to the department store. Back then, that little All Might figurine had been everything he could’ve hoped for.

Looking at it now, it’s…. a bit unimpressive. Ragged too. The paint is faded out, there’s a chip on the back, and there’s Sharpie on All Might’s cape from that time Kacchan’d tried writing his name on the figurine to declare it was his instead…

Izuku huffs.

It’s ragged, yes, and he loves it for that. But he’s not sure it’ll make for a good “do you want to be my friend?” gift.

(“What, you wanna bribe the kid? Deku, you know he’ll be fucking obsessed with you, right. It’s fucking Icyhot, for fuck’s sake.”)

Izuku scrunches his nose, his stomach lurches. Yes, this child is Todoroki, and yes, he and Todoroki are—were—best friends…

But they became best friends through sheer stubbornness, mindless shouting and trauma-dumping. Before that, Todoroki was much different, much more closed-off and distrustful.

So what if this time, he doesn’t like Izuku?

What if this time, he doesn’t trust him?

What if, the moment he sees him again, Izuku embarrasses himself by crying the fountain of tears that he’s got so carefully contained behind his eyes?

What if—

“Knock knock!”

Izuku jumps, whips his head to the door. A brown bob and a square hand come into view. “Hi guys,” Izuku greets, off-kilter.

Uraraka walks in, dressed in a black hoodie and faded jeans, the embers of a smile lighting up her face. “Hiya Deku-kun,” she says. “How you holding up?”

“I’m… Uh. Kacchan and I went for a run this morning,” he deflects.

Iida’s glasses flash as he inclines his head, subtly inspects Izuku’s hands—the scabs, the scratches, the tremor. Self-conscious, Izuku hides his hands—and All Might with them—behind his back.

“What about you guys, how are you?”

“We are not well,” Iida responds squarely. His shirt collar is crinkled—he must not have ironed it today. “But such is the entire class. It is to be expected, of course.”

Uraraka chuckles a bit awkwardly at his words, but she doesn’t contradict him. She only looks at Izuku, her eyes kind and searching. After a long silence, she finally declares, “You’re going to see him, right?”

She says it with so much certainty, like it’s evident, an infaillible truth. Kacchan had said something along those lines too, when they’d gotten back to the dorms earlier. Like it’s inconceivable that Izuku would not go see Todoroki.

An eight-year-old Todoroki. After he’d died in his arms.

Two days ago.

“I’m— Uh…” he takes a breath. “Aizawa-sensei did say yesterday that no one in the class could go and bother them until he said so…”

“Yeah, but he’ll let you see him.”

Another truth.

Izuku gulps. “I…”

Will he? Why would he? Izuku was the last person to fail Todoroki, why should he be permitted anywhere near him again? Uraraka speaks like it’s a truth, but Izuku can barely see it as a possibility, and he—he doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know.

“Oook, how about we sit down, yeah?”

Barely aware of it, Izuku is guided to the side of his bed, then Uraraka plops herself next to him with a hand on his shoulder and Iida sits on Izuku’s desk chair, swiveling around to face them both. Eventually, his friends’ warm presence and gentle coaching cradles him back into a sense of security and settles his mind. It takes the time that it takes, though, and Izuku isn’t sure how long that is exactly.

When he looks up again, Iida and Uraraka have been holding some silent conversation with their eyes, but he blinks and they’re watching him again.

“I didn’t mean to sound forceful, Deku-kun,” Uraraka begins sheepishly. “Of course, if you’re not ready, you don’t have to go!”

“Absolutely,” Iida confirms, “there is no recipe to navigating such a situation. There is only what feels right!”

What feels right.

What feels right?

Izuku tightens his hands into fists, frustrated that he doesn’t know the answer—but then he feels the figurine in his hand, its pointy edges digging into his flesh. When he looks down, All Might is smiling up at him, like everything will be all right.

It makes him pause.

“Do you remember when we learned that All Might was Todoroki-kun’s favourite hero?” Izuku asks, some unknown emotion at the tip of his throat. The response is instant: Uraraka snorts, Iida almost chuckles.

“I’d never seen his eyes sparkle that much before,” he reminisces fondly.

“Well to be fair,” Uraraka chimes in, “your room is better than, like, any All Might store in the prefecture, Deku-kun. Even better than the World Hero’s Museum. Of course Todoroki-kun was impressed!”

It’s Izuku’s turn to smile, though his cheeks feel like clay against his face. “He was so shy about it, but I remember how much he listened when I showed him my collection. Like, he stayed even after you guys left for breakfast, and he was so focused on what I was saying too.” Izuku looks down at his hand, at the ragged little All Might he picked up today for the first time in months. “He said that this one was his favourite… Because it showed how long I’d been a fan, and how much I cared. He said, ‘I would’ve been so happy to have that as a kid. I think it was a dream of mine, once.’ “

Izuku pauses. His throat is tight, the words caught in his vocal chords on their way out. Uraraka rests her head in the crook of his neck, and together, the three of them wait in silence until the knot unwinds.

“I want to go see him.”

He blurts this out before even knowing what words were being swallowed down in his throat.

That’s how he knows they’re true.

“But,” he whispers, “I’m scared. Because I’m… I’m not super ok. I haven’t really slept since he… since… Yeah. I’ve been having nightmares, I keep… thinking about it. And I- Well I can still feel his… his blood getting cold on my hands—and I can still see the panic in his eyes—and the way his fingers clawed at my clothes… and I—I’ve never—”

His voice dies, and his shoulder becomes damp as he starts to shake.

“I’m so sorry Deku-kun,” Uraraka whispers. Iida takes his glasses off to swipe at his eyes.

And Izuku hums, acknowledging.

When he finds his voice again, it’s to say, “I’ll be honest, I’m scared for another reason too.” He leans his head against Uraraka’s, closes his eyes and gulps, embarrassed. Ashamed. “It’s pretty stupid compared to all that but… I’m scared to see him now because I’ve never really managed to make friends… before.”

Iida’s immediate protest is so loud that Izuku almost jumps. “Why! Midoriya-kun! How dare you say such a thing to your friends?!”

“No no!” Izuku quickly explains, “I mean of course we’re friends, Iida-kun, I’m not denying that! It’s just… you guys sort of… adopted me? And before you guys, I didn’t even have friends. And then when I did become friends with Todoroki-kun, it was because he needed saving and I just couldn’t not do anything. But I wasn’t trying to become his friend, I just wanted to help.”

Uraraka hums, lifting her head from his shoulder, jostling him. “So basically, you made friends by being yourself,” she summarizes with this nifty glint in her eyes that tells Izuku he’s just been check-mated. He feels his cheeks heat up in response.

“That’s not—”

“Isn’t that precisely what he said, Iida-kun?” Uraraka addresses Iida lightly, who clears his throat and nods his head a bit embarrassed to be siding against Izuku on this. Uraraka then shifts a bit so she can look into Izuku’s eyes while still holding onto his arm. Gentle, reassuring—but fierce. “Please don’t sell yourself short, Deku-kun.”

“And might I add,” Iida says then, “that I’ve always felt it was you who adopted me—if that is the word you want to use—with your kindness, your caringly inquisitive nature and your smile.” His hand has started chopping the air into minced O’s and 2’s. “You naturally draw people in, Midoriya-kun. Not just because you want to help, but because of who you are.”

To that, Izuku doesn’t know what to answer. They look so sincere, his friends, so convinced that he almost wants to let himself feel convinced too. It’d be great if he were, he thinks. So he lets the words settle like dust on his mind until the urge to cry has passed, until the fear in him is brought from a boil to a simmer, until he finally starts to feel… braver. He might not fully believe them right now, but he lets the words sink into his mind—because in that moment, he needs to.

After all, like Kacchan said, there’s a job to do, a wrong to be righted. Because Izuku remembers what he saw yesterday: a wake, yes, and a tragedy too—but at the end of it all, he saw a boy, friendless and afraid.

A boy that no one saved.

And ever since he saw him first, Izuku’s wanted to save him, he knows—otherwise, why would he have sought out his first All Might the moment he could, this first All Might that Todoroki once hoped would’ve been his?

He knows his answer. He knows what feels right.

So Izuku takes a final, shivering breath, then effortfully sheds his pain, squares his shoulders, grips the figure in his hand—and feels his friends let go, the way a scaffold is taken away once a construction is complete.

“I have to go,” Izuku declares.

If he doesn’t, he might start scratching again, might start crying again—because yeah, he’s not ok. But right now, he can’t afford to wait until he is, not when somewhere out there on campus, there is an eight-year old boy, friendless and afraid, crying for no one to hear.

Uraraka bumps his shoulder somewhat tamely, smiles warmly at him when he looks at her.

“Go get ‘im bunny boy!” she says, he eyes glistening.

“And Midoriya-kun,” Iida chimes in candidly, “whatever happens, we’ll be there for you. Please remember that.”

Izuku smiles. “I won’t forget this time, Iida-kun.”

Before Izuku’s had the time to brace himself, Kacchan’s knocked on the apartment door—and then Aizawa-sensei’s standing there in front of them both. Sensei takes one look at each of them, sighs some long-suffering thing, then steps out of his apartment and closes the door behind him. He smells like coffee, his lone eye is red, and he’s wearing gray sweats. Sensei never wears sweats.

“I don’t suppose there’s any use in pointing out that you’re directly disobeying my instructions.”

Kacchan scoffs. “You mean that thing you said to the extras about staying away so we could fucking swoop in uninterrupted and help you babysit?”

Sensei sends a thoroughly unamused look Kacchan’s way. “You two have been through a lot too, Bakugou.”

“Oh, fucking spare me.”

And Kacchan barges into Aizawa-sensei’s apartment without much more preamble, his patience thoroughly spent. Despite the violence of the exchange, Sensei doesn’t protest, and Izuku is left alone with him in the corridor, pinned by a stare that shifts from indifference to evident concern.

“You don’t have to go in,” Sensei tells him evenly after a long while. Izuku’s stomach churns at the kindness he finds in his teacher’s tone...

But quickly enough, his resolve hardens. “I know Sensei,” he tells him, and somehow means it. He’s choosing to do this. Aizawa-sensei watches him for a few moments more, carefully scans his face.

“I won’t be the one to tell you when you’re ready,” he says at last, impressively perceptive, “because only you can decide that. But I don’t want you pushing yourself over your limits for the sake of others, Midoriya. You matter. And my job is to care for all of my students.”

Caught off guard, Izuku doesn’t know what to say, so he blinks dumbly at his teacher, then clicks his teeth when he realizes he’d been gaping. “I… thank you for saying that Sensei,” he says eventually. “I appreciate it.”

And he does. But that doesn’t change his mind—and Sensei seems to realize it because he sighs, then opens the door while mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like, “Problem Child.”

Izuku’s touched nonetheless.

It’s a bit strange, walking into Aizawa-sensei’s apartment. It’s Izuku’s first time here after almost a year of being his student, and a quick glance at the place gives him two thoughts: firstly, that Underground Pro Hero homeroom teachers sure aren’t paid enough—and secondly, that Sensei loves Eri very much.

After all, for there to be this many toys and plushies and cat sweaters strewn around such sparse, utilitarian furniture, there’s no other conclusion Izuku could’ve drawn. Sensei doesn’t even have a couch, for goodness’ sake, and yet, right in front of the TV, there’s a doll house and a toy chest.

“Oh!” a shyly excited voice exclaims, “It’s Deku-san! Good morning Deku-san!”

When Izuku looks, he finds Eri sitting on the counter next to the stove—where Kacchan is stirring a steaming pot, for some reason—positively beaming at him. She’s wearing yellow corduroy overalls with a white turtleneck, her hair tied up in twin pigtails, and she waves her tiny hand at him while happily kicking her feet.

Unbidden, Izuku smiles. “Good morning Eri,” he tells her, impossibly fond. To think there was a time where he thought he’d never see this child happy, and yet now she hands out smiles like one does candy at Halloween. He can hardly believe how far she’s come.

“Stop kicking your feet like that midget, you’ll fucking fall,” Kacchan snaps suddenly, albeit with very little bite to it.

“Okay,” Eri answers easily.

“Mind your language, Bakugou,” Aizawa-sensei drawls with aggravated tiredness. “And why, may I ask, is Eri sitting on the counter?”

Kacchan shrugs unapologetically. “She just wanted to see how the miso soup turned out.”

“You mean you two were sneaking in a taste,” Aizawa-sensei counters drily, then sighs when he sees Eri’s sheepish smile. “Well that’s both unnecessary and illogical. Breakfast is ready, so let’s all eat. Eri, will you please help Bakugou set the table while I plate the soup and curry rice.”

Eri nods vigorously then lifts her arms high over her head, prompting Kacchan to plop her to the ground with practiced ease. Once she’s back on the ground, Eri tugs onto his pant leg to lead him to the cutlery cabinet with the air of one tasked with an important mission, and to his credit, Kacchan lets himself be manhandled surprisingly tamely. It all makes for a frankly endearing sight—one almost endearing enough for Izuku not to notice the weight of Sensei’s gaze on him.

Almost.

“Midoriya,” Sensei says not unkindly, and Izuku already knows what will be asked of him, so he nods once. Sensei carefully examines Izuku’s face with pinched lips, then nods back. “If Todoroki’s sleeping,” he instructs, “then let him. He had an eventful day yesterday… But he did skip supper, so I wouldn’t want him to miss breakfast as well.”

“No problem Sensei,” Izuku assures, then is directed to the door behind which he’ll find him.

Todoroki.

This time, there is no one to knock in his stead, no Kacchan to take the leap for him—and that’s honestly really scary, but also he shouldn’t be thinking so much about it because isn’t that exactly why he’s here? Isn’t Izuku here to face his fears? All he has to do is knock, really.

So Izuku knocks.

…

Oh shit, he knocked.

“Yes?”

The voice comes and… it’s that voice—the same voice as yesterday: high-pitched, even, quiet. So different to the one he knows.

Dammit, it’s so different.

His hands, they’re cold and he needs to—he needs to—

Izuku shoves his hands in his pockets, and All Might catches against the denim of his jeans. Right, All Might. All Might is here because Izuku has a mission. Yeah, a mission and—

Oh wait—did he answer? Dammit, he doesn’t think he has. It’s weird to knock and not answer, isn’t it? He should really say something. Izuku clears his throat. “It’s me,” he says shakily.

Silence greets him. A long stretch of it. Then, when Izuku realizes what it is he actually said to a child seven years too young to have met him—what a stupid thing to say, oh my god—he hears a quiet, “Come in.”

So… he does.

And wow—oh wow he’s young.

Chubby cheeks, twig-like arms and legs, big mismatched eyes blinking emptily up at him. There is no doubt that this here is Todoroki, sitting right in front of him—and Izuku feels his ribcage fold in on itself, hears his heart beat like a taiko in his ears—but somehow he neither freezes nor laughs nor cries. The sight in front of him shocks him out of any emotion, really. Because there in front of him sits a boy, his hands folded on his knees, his legs idle and too short to reach the floor—a mirror image of how Eri had just been sitting on the counter, but somehow, so completely different too.

It’s because he’s not moving, Izuku realizes, he’s not smiling, and he’s not fidgeting with whatever it is that always makes kids unable to stand still. No, he’s just there, sitting on a bed that’s already made, his hair brushed into perfect halves, his face slack and without a trace of sleep on it.

“You’re awake,” Izuku says dumbly.

Kid Todoroki furrows his brow, then smooths it out almost as quickly. “Yes. So are you.”

Well. This conversation is going places.

Izuku shakes his head. “May I come in?” he asks kindly, and receives a wordless nod after much hesitation. He feels awkward, coming in. Each of his movements is being observed, he knows—analysed and documented. Like he’s a threat.

How on earth did no one see the shadows of pain on this boy’s face before, Izuku wonders.

How on earth.

“Do you—” and he interrupts himself. ‘Do you recognize me’ is what he was going to ask. What a stupid question. If anything, Todoroki would say yes and call him the guy who captured him yesterday like one hoists a fish out of water. Not at all the impression he wants to give, nor the one he wants to stick…

(Worse still, he could say no, and then Izuku might actually cry.)

He changes tack. “Did you sleep well?”

Blankly, the little boy blinks at him like he doesn’t know how to answer this question. Like he’s never had someone ask him that question. Eventually though, he nods—then blinks again in quick succession before mouthing a plain, “Yes.”

“Good! That’s good,” Izuku exclaims, exhausting himself with his own lameness.

Dammit, he wanted to be here. He chose this. He chose this for a reason.

Yeah.

“I’m… My name is Midoriya Izuku,” he says at last. “We met yesterday, I suppose, but I didn’t introduce myself then. I hope you didn’t get hurt from getting caught in my Black Whip net! But—oh, yeah, I’m a hero student here at U.A., that’s why I was allowed to use my Quirk. I’m also one of your classmates, and your best friend.”

“I don’t have friends.”

The kid says it so fast that it takes Izuku a second to process what it is he actually said. And when he does, his heart stalls. Because he says it not like a complaint, but like a fact. Like there’s no world in which that’s not true.

It reminds him of something: of a young boy who used to live in a time where booming explosions and the salt of tears peppered his every day. It makes him think of a boy whose definition of ‘friend’ was once so twisted and corrupted that its meaning was barely recognizable… And thinking of that time makes Izuku’s hands start to tremble. Because having a friend, a real one—one like Todoroki—would’ve made all of that pain so much more tolerable, he thinks. If only someone had offered their hand.

Izuku looks at this boy in front of him, familiar yet strange. He crouches to his height, his knees on the wooden floor, and looks up into the boy’s eyes. They’re cold, his eyes. Distant, weary. Quiet.

But he offers his hand.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, Todo—” in a split second, he takes a calculated risk, “—Shouto-kun.”

There is no clear reaction to the name other than perhaps a slightly surprised blink, but contrary to yesterday, the boy doesn’t retreat into his mind at the sound of his name, and Izuku takes that as a win. He smiles as warmly as he can, and under the careful scrutiny of this boy, he slowly unfurls the fingers of his left hand to reveal his gift.

“I’d really like to be your friend,” Izuku declares tentatively, his eyes watering of their own accord. He extends his hand and presents the figure in all its smiling glory. “I brought this for you. You see, I’m a big big fan of All Might, and I know that you are too, so I thought it’d be cool if I—”

“No I’m not. I hate All Might.”

Izuku freezes.

“W-What?”

“All Might,” the boy repeats, enunciating more clearly, almost robotically. “I hate him.”

Silence descends and Izuku reels in it.

He’s sure the room they’re in is too small to create echoes, but the words echo all the same—punching him in the gut every time they reverberate against his skull. This is… a lie, isn’t it? Did Todoroki-kun really hate All Might once? That doesn’t… it doesn’t seem right. Izuku remembers Todoroki-kun telling him about the All Might documentaries that he would watch in hiding with his mother once—and he remembers him confiding that he used to imagine All Might barging in to save him after his mother had gone…

No no, this has to be a trick, Izuku thinks, breathing shallow, but easier by the reasoning. Because it has to be.

Otherwise he just… doesn’t know Todoroki-kun like he thought he did.

“I won’t fall for bribery either,” the boy continues, something almost cruel in his voice. “I don’t need friends.”

The words are piercing, laced with so much vitriol that Izuku feels them burning on his skin… But he doesn’t freeze this time. Because in those words, there’s also something… rehearsed. Like this young version of Todoroki-kun had been taught to throw them at people in order to keep them at arm’s length. Maybe he’d even learned to wear them like armor.

An armor has cracks though—and Izuku’ll be damned if he gives up before ever finding them.

“Oi.”

Kacchan’s head pops into the room, his harsh whisper breaking a silence that Izuku hadn’t even noticed settling. Kacchan looks at him critically for a second, like he’s checking to see if he’s still in one piece, then he turns his scalding focus onto baby Todoroki’s frame, who’s still sitting ramrod straight on his bed. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of expression washes over Kacchan’s face, something vulnerable and raw, but then he scowls, looking all the much like he’s swallowed an unpeeled durian.

“What the fuck, you were already up?” he fully steps into the room, speaking at full volume now, though his voice’s a bit more gravelly than usual. His eyes roam over Shouto’s form, and he works his jaw. “If you were already fucking awake, then what’s taking so damn long?”

Shouto stares blankly at him, tilts his head in exactly the same way that Todoroki does—used to do—when confused. “You swear a lot,” the boy remarks.

“Well ain’t nothing flying over you head, eh Half ‘n Half… ‘N Half,” Kacchan snarks after a mockingly appreciative whistle. He pushes himself against the doorframe on which he’d been leaning with exasperation that looks a bit forced. “Breakfast is ready kid. Scram.”

The boy blinks at him like he’s not too sure what to make of this new character, but eventually he obliges, jumping from the bed until his bare feet pitter patter on the polished wood. He doesn’t even throw a glance back at Izuku before he’s out the room.

A moment passes then where neither Izuku nor Kacchan move. Izuku feels Kacchan’s eyes on him though, his eyes piercing his skull, questioning, concerned and probably angry about it too. Izuku needs some silence though. Because he—he didn’t expect for things to go this way. He thought Shouto would be… what, relieved? Happy? He would have been if someone had approached him like that once to become friends with him.

But he’s not Shouto is he. They’re similar, yes, but they’re also different.

Shouto and Todoroki are too—different, that is.

Dammit, they’re… they’re so different.

“Your fucking hands, Deku.”

“Oh,” slips out, and Izuku wrenches his hands apart. He hadn’t realized he’d started scratching again. He hadn’t realized he’d started shaking either.

“Fuck’s sake,” Kacchan says, producing a tissue from seemingly nowhere and—

Oh. He’s crying. Izuku’s crying. He hadn’t realized that either.

“Guess we’re not having breakfast with the brats then, huh,” Kacchan says abrasively while also crouching next to Izuku and resting a surprisingly gentle hand on his back—warm, reassuring, here.

Kacchan’s here.

“I just need a minute.”

“Yeah,” Kacchan says, then mutters something that sort of sounds like, “me too.”

They stay there, crouching on the floor of what is probably Aizawa-sensei’s room actually, now that he’s thinking about it—and they stay there until Izuku’s able to blink without letting a tear fall every time. By then, Aizawa-sensei’s come to check on them once, Kacchan has stolen the All Might figurine from his hand, and they’re both sitting, their legs extended in front of them, one foot touching, one foot not.

“He said he didn’t need friends.”

Kacchan scoffs.

“When has that ever stopped you, nerd.”

Izuku snorts, feeling lighter somehow.

Yeah—that won't stop him.

Chapter Text

If given the choice, this isn’t at all how Shouta would have had the meeting with Todoroki Rei go.

“It is regrettable,” Recovery Girl agrees softly as they keep their vigil together, outside the conference room they’ve just been asked to exit. “But you saw the boy’s X-Rays as I did, Shoutan. Bone calluses mark the sites of recent fractures on his ribs and right radius. These are telltale signs of abuse. We cannot in good conscience allow him to return to the family that permitted this in the first place. Caution is in order.”

“His mother wasn’t even there when it happened,” Shouta counters simply. “And with all due respect, Shuuzenji-sensei,” he enunciates clearly, deliberately, “you are the last person from whom I should draw lessons on caution.”

The woman humphs, looks up at him reproachfully as she adjusts her grip on her cane—but she does not protest. They both know, after all, that this situation would not exist had she respected Shouta’s wish to keep Eri from the wake.

For a moment, some awkward silence reigns between them. Shouta can just decipher the faint sound of Todoroki Rei’s voice in the conference room, advocating still for visitation rights of her son—and he scowls.

What a shit situation.

“I do apologize, Shoutan,” Recovery Girl says at last, and she does sounds contrite. “I hadn’t foreseen that bringing young Eri to say goodbye to her friend would devolve into this at all.”

“We must blame a lack of imagination then,” Shouta retorts drily, for which he receives a glare just as dry.

“Oh, the insolence of youth,” Recovery Girl tuts like he’s a schoolboy again—and yes, he supposes he’s earned it.

Somehow, the uneasiness that’s been festering between them for the last three days begins to dissipate with just these few words. Shouta is still annoyed by his former teacher’s oversight—but he can’t fully blame her for it either, and gains nothing from holding a grudge.

So the dust settles as the silence continues, and that’s that.

It’s a while more before the door to the conference room opens—and to the sound of Principal Nedzu expressing pleasantries…

Out walks Todoroki Rei.

Shouta had never seen her before today, but even he can tell that recent events have emaciated her: dark shadows weigh her eyes, tangles mar her snow white hair, tension wracks her features. She is a beautiful woman to whom the fates have not been kind, and though grief clings to her, Shouta is struck by her ressemblance to her son, to how guarded and tired he sometimes looks.

Looked.

She spots him quickly, and with two or her children in tow—Fuyumi and Natsuo, as they’d introduced themselves—she approaches him like a woman on a mission.

He nods. “Todoroki Rei-san.”

Her eyes rove his face. They’re grey as rain. “Aizawa-sensei,” she reciprocates.

Silence stretches, and Shouta wonders if she hates him. He’s never been one to be preoccupied with others’ perception of him—but he’s also never been an obstacle between a mother and her son. He wouldn’t blame her if she does hate him.

Todoroki Rei breaks eye contact after a long moment—to rummage through her hand bag. When she looks up again, there’s a book in her hands. Shouta watches. It looks like some limited edition thing, hardcover and all, with scintillating letters that spell out the words “Traditional Folk Tales” overtop drawings of a crane and a peach.

Todoroki Rei extends the book forward.

“I would read to him when he had nightmares,” she says, instead of insulting Shouta. Her eyes are bright, now. “His favourite was the tale of Momotarō.”

Those words are not what he expected, but Shouta reaches a hand to accept the book. He can see its pages have yellowed with time, but it looks perfectly kept and well taken care of, like it’s a precious treasure.

He grabs it with two hands.

Todoroki Rei’s eyes search his. “Please take good care of my son,” she says, an avalanche of emotion falling on her face.

“I would give my life for him, ma’am,” Shouta tells her with a bow. Because it’s true—for any of his students, he would.

She pinches her lips, sadness seeps into her features.

“I believe you,” she says simply. “Though I hope never to see you prove it.”

She bows in both thanks and respect, then walks away.

Leaving a son, a book, and a promise in her wake.

It’s well past 11PM when Shouta makes it back to his apartment. The place is silent. Dark. The kids are asleep, he presumes. Quietly, he hangs up his keys. From the genkan, the warm hue of Eri’s bunny nightlight casts a strange halo of disquiet onto the living room. It takes only a glance, then, for Shouta to catch the stark outline of a figure lounging on his couch.

He sighs—Yamada grins.

“Yo Eraser,” the blonde whispers harshly, his hand shooting up high. Shouta’s ears itch at the volume—though he probably should be grateful the idiot remembered to whisper at all.

He slips on black slippers. “Are they asleep?”

“Well of course!” Yamada’s manbun wiggles for emphasis. “Uncle Yamada wouldn’t let the kiddos stay up later than what dear Papazawa decreed!”

“Yamada, if you have any regard for my sanity, you’ll never call me that again.”

The shit-eating grin he gets in response makes the last of his energy evaporate, and he falls onto the couch next to the bane of his existence.

Problem Patient Zero.

For a time, neither of them speaks, and Shouta watches Eri’s little bunny light. She loves that thing. He can sort of see why. It looks a bit wonky, lying flat on its belly, its face all squished like it can’t even fathom lifting it—and somehow, Shouta’s never empathized more with a piece of wiggly white plastic than he does now.

At least, the day’s over.

“How are the kids?”

He can feel Yamada’s smile grow even without looking at him. “They’re fine, you worrywart. Sleeping. How was the meeting?”

“Which one,” Shouta retorts shortly.

Yamada snorts.

“Did someone not get his nap today?”

“I will strangle you.”

“And here I thought you never made empty threats.”

“You thought right.”

The goof barks out a laugh, and Shouta’s eye flashes red at the noise, a warning not to wake the two small souls sleeping just next door. Yamada raises his hands in surrender and doesn’t make another sound for a time as compromise.

“Did he eat tonight?” Shouta asks at length. Yamada hums.

“Every last grain of rice. Kiddo looked hungry.”

Shouta keeps his voice steady and his eyes on the bunny. “He’s been eating sporadically these last three days. I thought it was my cooking—” Yamada makes this idle, teasing noise of approval— “but Endeavour sent me an email today. With a schedule attached. Said he used to keep his kid’s days ‘tightly regulated’—but that he’d forgotten about the damn schedule until now.”

Shouta clenches his jaw.

“Three days in.“

He gulps down a ball of indignant anger clogging his throat, and purposefully does not think of a boy wringing his hands and sleeping hungry because Shouta didn’t know about the fucking schedule.

“You couldn’t have known,” Yamada tells him, oddly quiet—and yes, logically he couldn’t have. The kid barely speaks, and it’s clear he doesn’t trust him one bit.

That doesn’t stop Shouta from kicking himself over it.

“Say, what’s that book in your hands there?”

Shouta blinks, thoughts screeching to a halt at the conversation one-eighty—then he sends a pointed look at his high-school friend, annoyed at being read so thoroughly. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Yamada,” he drawls, absentmindedly tracing the gilded title of the hardcover in his hands.

The cockatiel idiot grins knowingly.

“Never claimed to be, Emptyhead,” he winks obnoxiously. The asshole. “C’mon, what’s with the book? You into folktales now?”

“None of your business.”

An insufferable guffaw. “All right then, keep your secrets.”

They spend a few more minutes like this, Yamada lamenting at Shouta’s nonexistent pop culture knowledge, Shouta painstakingly enduring Yamada’s blatant attempts at distraction. When the idiot yawns thrice in a minute, he mercifully shows himself to the door—though not before threatening to contact Cementoss to rearrange the apartment because, “you can’t sleep on the couch forever, old fart!”

When the front door creaks, Shouta closes his eyes on a sigh, lays an arm over his stomach and rests his head on the other. He’s spent. Done. He’s in his hero jumpsuit still and hasn’t brushed his teeth even though he had five coffees today—but that’s fine, he just needs to sleep.

“You know,” the Annoyance pipes up then, still in his apartment, still too loud. Shouta groans, his eye flashing red again. “You don’t have to worry Shouta,” Yamada continues, immune albeit more quiet about it. His smile is as loud as his next words.

“I know you’ll do right by the kid.”

The words sit there under the light of Eri’s little white bunny lamp—over the hardcover that Shouta’s laid on the chabudai by the couch.

They’re not anything new, those words. He’s uttered them to himself time and time again those last three days…

It’s still good to hear them from someone else’s mouth, though.

Even especially if it’s from Yamada’s.

“Get out.”

“Sure thing! Get ‘em bed bugs, Sleepyhead.”

“Get out.”

Like every other morning since his arrival, Todoroki opens his door on the second knock. And like every other morning since his arrival, Shouta expects to find the kid in pyjamas, rubbing sleep out of his eyes—but instead finds him fully dressed, his hair is combed, looking up at Shouta like he’s expecting something other than a ‘Good morning kid.’

It’s unsettling. Shouta doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Good morning sir,” the child responds blandly, following Shouta into the kitchen—and in the spirit of prioritizing problems, Shouta decides not to dig.

For now.

He grilled fish today. He woke up thirty minutes ago to grill the fish, dump the eggs on the rice, slice some peaches and ensure that breakfast aligns exactly with the time written in Endeavour’s goddamn schedule—which means that the sun’s barely up, he’s slept two whole hours, and Eri has bags under her eyes…

But when Todoroki casts a furtive glance at the clock on the wall, his face melts into relief.

Dammit, they were right.

“Thank you for the food, Shouta-san!” Eri mumbles sleepily when they settle around the table. It’s an endearing sight. Shouta makes a mental note to bring forward today’s nap though.

“How was your day yesterday?” he enquires as they dig in.

They all do.

“Good!” Eri declares with a gentle, excited smile. “Shouto-nii, Microphone-san and I made drawings.”

Shouto-nii? Shouta makes a noise of encouragement and Eri starts kicking her feet sheepishly under the table.

“I missed you though.”

Shouta frowns, fighting some ill-placed guilt taking root in his gut. It’s not hard to answer with a, “I did too,” because it’s true. He wishes he hadn’t separated from them. But a situation as complex as this warranted meetings, plans, conversations to be had.

(”The villain Dabi has been apprehended,” Tsukauchi had announced from under the porch of the Police Station, the rain pelting down. “I will personally conduct his interrogation. If it really was him who killed young Todoroki—”

“Yes,” Shouta had interrupted, unsettled. “Do keep me posted, Detective.”)

A pair of chopsticks plants half a fish onto Eri’s rice bowl, and Shouta looks up to see Todoroki retreat his hand in a flash, as if he’d done something reprehensible.

“Thank you Shouto-nii!” Eri exclaims brightly, her previous sadness gone in a flash. Todoroki’s cheeks redden.

They redden.

Shouta makes an effort not to stare but he can’t help but marvel at the clear progress that Eri has made in half a day when he himself has stagnated for three.

“And how was your day yesterday, kiddo?” he asks Todoroki conversationally. The boy’s eyes widen at being addressed, then dart to Eri’s like he doesn’t know what to do. Shouta forces his face to remain neutral and unthreatening. This is not a trap, he wants to convey.

After some time, Todoroki speaks quietly.

“Good.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Shouta doesn’t mind. He’s actually glad the kid answered aloud at all. Sometimes he seems to forget his voice entirely.

“I’m happy to hear it,” he says earnestly, hoping it sounds true even to distrustful ears.

He inquires after their drawings next, asks if he can see them but Eri tells him sheepishly that they gave them to Mic. “But maybe next time we can make a drawing that’s special and just for you! Shouto-nii said he wanted to try drawing next time since he wanted to only choose the colours this time!”

Shouta hums with a smile—but Todoroki tenses, pinches his eyebrows and clenches his jaw.

Like he’s bracing for Shouta to yell.

“Todoroki,” Shouta says calmly. The boy still looks up with a flinch that feels like a punch.

“Oh!” Eri speaks then, “Shouto-nii prefers his first name!”

Shouta blinks, processing. His first name. Well of course he would—how hadn’t he figured that one out on his own? He needs a second coffee. Or better yet, sleep. This is not the time to be mucking things up.

“Thank you for telling me Eri,” he says instead. Then, “Shouto, kid.” He waits until the boy is looking at him.

His face is of stone, but Shouta is not deterred.

“I want to apologize to you.”

Visibly, that stumps the kid: his mouth falls open, surprise slackens his features—and Shouta thinks ‘well good’, because maybe that’s his opening through the boy’s steel guard.

“It was brought to my attention yesterday,” he continues, “that the way we’ve been going about things up to now has been making you uncomfortable. I want to make it clear that that is not my intention. I wish to help you feel safe here, to make sure you’re fed and clothed—and happy. That’s all I want for you. And the only thing I request from you is, if you can, to try to let me ensure these things for you.”

Instantly, the boy’s face tightens marginally, closing off like shutters on a windowsill. Too much to ask, perhaps. But still, Shouta’s undeterred. He can’t expect trust after a single speech. As long as the boy heard him, then it’s a step.

Slowly, Shouta stands from his chair then and wanders into his room—the room that’s always doubled as his study, which is now tripling as a guest room and damn, maybe enlisting Cementoss isn’t such a bad idea after all. Therein, he fetches paper and a pen, and is quick to return to the dinner table.

The sun is climbing high in the sky when he rests the stark white paper on the table in front of all three of them.

A clean, bright slate.

“Kid,” he says, looking at Shouto’s closed off expression, “you’ve always lived by your father’s rules. But your father’s not here, and under my roof, the rules are different. I’m sorry I didn’t make it clearer before.” At the top of the paper, he writes in his neatest handwriting so that two-graders may read easily the words ‘Aizawa Household Rules’ and he underlines the title. “I have three golden rules I want you both to abide to.”

Eri’s hand shoots up into the air like a rocket, and Shouta can’t help but smile. “Yes Eri?”

“Number one is ‘Anyone who asks for help will receive it’, right?”

Her eyes are bright and carmine and trusting, and Shouta feels pride swell in his chest. “That’s right,” he tells her. To think they’d gotten this far together when once she would look at him with nothing but fear and dread. It gives him a strange kind of hope—the hope that someday, he may reach a similar place with the young Shouto beside him.

In bold letters, he writes the first rule, neat and clear. Shouto’s face is impassive as always as he does, but his eyes track Shouta’s every movement.

“My second rule,” he continues, acutely aware of the scrutiny, “is ‘No Quirks without an adult present’. It’s a matter of safety, simply logical, yes?” Both children nod, and Shouta follows suit. “As for my last rule,” he says, and he writes ‘If ever I am asleep and you need something, wake me.’

They don’t know the weight of that one. Shouta used to value sleep more than anything else.

He used to.

He asks then if they have questions. Eri doesn’t, she’s known these rules since he’d created them for her almost a year ago. Shouto, on the other hand, looks like he’s waging a war against himself not to speak. For the first time since he’s been with Shouta, his emotions are clear as a beacon: confusion, doubt…

Curiosity?

He doesn’t say anything though, so Shouta doesn’t insist. He needs the kid to know he’s genuine, and rehashing the concepts might make them overripe, suspicious. So he lets them sit there as the truths that they are, the truths he hopes the boy will learn.

“We’ll pin this paper to the fridge so everyone can see it at any time,” Shouta declares. “But before we do that, I propose we work on a schedule of our own. So everyone knows what to expect. What do you say?”

Immediately, Eri’s hand shoots up into the air once again.

“Can we wake up after the sunrise from now on?”

A chuckle bubbles out of his chest and he heartily agrees. Shouto remains impassive, but his cheeks stain red once more as he watches Shouta write the suggestion down.

By 9AM, one of Eri’s quaver note magnets has the new schedule and household rules secured onto Shouta’s fridge, the table is cleared, both children are dressed—and Eri’s pushing the TV remote into Shouta’s hand with twinkling eyes.

Ah, Shouta thinks. 9AM, that’s The Washawasha Hero Wash! time.

Accepting his fate, he settles onto the couch with the TV remote in hand. Bubbles promptly fill up the screen as Eri climbs onto the couch next to him, her shoulder brushing his side, her feet kicking the air in excitement.

It must be said for the record that the appeal of watching a cartoon Wash go about household chores is entirely lost on Shouta…

But this is Saturday morning tradition now.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Shouto lurking at the edge of the kitchen, wringing his hands. The boy stays rooted there despite Shouta inviting him to join them on the couch. He seems interested though, however tentatively, so Shouta doesn’t insist, lets him enjoy it at the comfortable distance he seems to prefer.

Eventually though, Shouta passes out. Perhaps it was to be expected.

When he comes to, the steady ticking of his clock fills the room, there’s a warm weight on his shoulder, and his throat is sandpaper. Dammit, he hates sleeping with his mouth open.

Blinking, he lifts his head from the sofa’s backrest. His neck cricks, protesting the movement severely, and he swallows—but he does it all silently, channeling his skills as an underground pro—because that weight on his shoulder is a sleeping Eri. He can hear her soft snores, the kind of puffy noises she makes when she’s deeply asleep, comfortable and properly resting.

He’ll be damned if he wakes her.

Sudden meowing resounds and his attention snaps to the TV, where a cartoon Mandalay is prancing around with a cowboy hat.

How illogical.

In front of the television though, something else catches his attention. The gilded book of traditional folk tales is lying flat open on the chabudai—and leaning right over it is Shouto.

The boy’s attention is raptly captured, his little hands sometimes turning pages, sometimes sliding carefully over drawings and printed words and—

His eyes are wide, blinking fast, his shoulders hunched and relaxed, his features soft and baffled. He looks like he’s caught in the throes of some painfully pleasant memory, a memory he’d perhaps forgotten, one he meets with silent wonder. It reminds Shouta of the expression on Hizashi’s face when they’d been boxing up Shirakumo’s belongings after his death. Hesitant, reverent, attentive—committing everything to memory.

It’s a jarring look on such a young child. Shouta knows he’d been separated from his mother at a young age—no doubt seeing this book so suddenly is unearthing memories.

Well shit, Shouta thinks, his stomach in knots. Surely, there might’ve been a better to go about this. He should’ve put the book away until he’d had at least an inkling of a plan…

On the TV, some boisterous brass music unexpectedly explodes and Shouto jumps violently at the sound before his head whips towards the couch as if to check if the noise has awoken any of them—

And their eyes meet.

For a beat, nothing happens.

Then suddenly, Shouto springs to his feet, makes some sort of movement as if to close the book, but he miscalculates and instead sends it flying against the wooden television stand. The ensuing noise is violent enough that Eri wakes with a jolt, and the boy flinches in response.

Shit. Shouta needs to disarm this situation right now.

“It’s alright kid,” he says soothingly—but to that as well, Shouto flinches. He steps back, even, almost flat against the wall, his mouth silently opening and closing repeatedly as if to speak. To apologize, maybe.

“What happened?” Eri rubs an eye sleepily.

“Just a book that fell,” Shouta assures quickly, “everything is fine. It’s alright, Shouto.”

But this, as most other things on the subject of reassurances, passes right over the kid’s head, and his mouth shuts suddenly, his face melting back into that awful wax mask of his. It fills Shouta’s gut with anger, to see this mask again when he knows the child is actively in distress. He won’t let it slide, he decides. Won’t turn a blind eye. He can’t let this child think he’s mad. He won’t.

He doesn’t lean forward since he knows it may be perceived as a threat, and he hides all frustration from his face for the very same reason. “I didn’t mean to startle you, kiddo,” he says calmly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was already awake and watching The… Pussycats of the Wild Wild West.”

Shouto’s face flickers with doubt, but then his eyes snap to Eri with a startle as she exclaims, “Oh no!” and plops down from the couch to the ground, her bare feet lightly patting the ground. She rushes to the book now haphazardly lying flat on the ground, its pages bent. When she reaches it, she gently picks it up, smooths out the wrinkles while whispering, “It’s ok.” Then she gasps at a colourful drawing of a crane.

“It’s beautiful,” she says in awe. “Shouto-nii, come look!”

Shouto doesn’t move, but he doesn’t flinch this time when he is addressed, nor does he flinch when Eri gets to her feet to join him—so Shouta decides to let the scene play out. He hits mute on the remote when Eri takes Shouto’s hand in hers and leads him towards the chabudai so they can sit together. And as she leafs through the book, she asks him questions. “Why is there a boy in a peach? Oh look, there’s a handwritten message at the beginning of the book! I wonder what it says. Can you read?”

Shouto does not say a single word in response. He’s trembling too. Sometimes, his mouth will open as if to answer, but no sound ever comes out. It’s like he’s stuck. Like he’s lost his voice.

He keeps looking at Shouta. It’s subtle, but there’s no mistaking it. He’s keeping tabs. It’s then that Shouta realizes how purposeful the boy’s position is too—he’s right between Shouta and Eri, not sitting fully, one knee bent up, ready to stand.

I’m a threat in this scene, Shouta realizes, his stomach in his feet.

And thus, concerned as he may be—that the wax mask is there again, that the boy is tracking him, that he still hasn’t uttered a word—well despite all of that, Shouta decides to retreat.

Disarm the situation by removing the threat.

It’s only logical.

“I’ll get a coffee,” he says awkwardly, and he stands.

His neck prickles as he does.

Shouta expects questions. He expects stares, expects to maybe even be cornered and confronted about the book. None of this happens. Instead, he grades papers on the kitchen table, the kids read all morning, and nothing else happens. It’s almost enough to make him wonder if the boy even recognized the book at all—maybe he’d been too young to remember? Shouta recalls hearing that he’d been five when his mother had been admitted to the Psychiatric ward, and on account of a difficult childhood, it’s not impossible that the child might’ve—

What? Forgotten his mother? No, that couldn’t be.

But god, what if he has…

The clock chimes eleven o’clock and Shouta hasn’t done much progress with his paperwork. Regardless, at eleven on the dot, little Shouto materializes next to the kitchen table, eyes blank but intent. He got changed, Shouta notices, wears now a small blue T-shirt and navy nylon shorts. They’re the only clothes he’d chosen himself when they’d gone to the store two days ago—sports clothes, that is.

“Right,” Shouta says distractedly, remembering the schedule they’d drawn just this morning, “time for some exercise.”

“Oh,” Eri chimes excitedly from where she’s tracing drawings with her index finger, “can I come?”

“No.”

The response is so sudden and harsh, Shouta almost thinks it came from Bakugou—if he were here, that is. But it’s Shouto staring him down instead, this is the first word he’s uttered in hours, and there’s fire in his eyes. A challenge.

Frankly, this irks him. Insolence and rudeness are not things Shouta tolerates, and his usual methods are to nip them in the bud with cuttingly dry remarks…

But it is knowing what passed as ‘training’ for this boy that reins him in. This is not any usual rebellion, he knows, and Shouta wants to earn the boy’s trust. For his sake, he wants to become an adult he can rely on, unequivocally. So despite Eri’s shy, questioning objection, Shouta concedes. He stands, walks and crouches before her with a hand on her shoulder. She’ll need a haircut soon, he thinks absentmindedly. “I think Shouto would prefer to exercise alone today, sweetheart. Perhaps tomorrow.”

Eri can’t hide her disappointment and Shouta feels a pang in his chest when she nods acceptingly. “It’s ok,” she says soft and kind, looking at Shouto as if she were trying to comfort him. Shouta feels a sharp rush of affection and ruffles her hair. She in turn runs into his torso for a hug, which he readily gives.

Shouto bores holes into his back throughout, but Shouta holds Eri as long as she holds onto him tight.

Hizashi comes to collect Eri soon after, all smiles and nonchalance, as if his plate weren’t already full looking after all of 1A today.

(”I hope you like cheese, little listener! Your big brothers and sisters are making soufflés!”

“I do. Aoyama-san made me try bree and cannonberry cheese. Will Aoyama-san be there? I think he’s an expert in cheese.”)

The two disappear into the staircase down the corridor and Shouta is left alone with little Shouto, the boy silent.

“Ready?”

“Yes sir.”

Shouta chooses an outdoor clearing not ten minutes away from his building. It’s on the side of UA that’s furthest from the Heights Alliance complexes, making it unlikely any students will find them here—and it’s still within UA grounds, making it unlikely for any cameras of the press to bring attention to them.

Overhead, sunlight reflects onto the UA windows like a disco ball, intent on blinding them. The cool midday breeze blows, carrying incessant songbird to their ears—and in the distance, stray clouds loom, promising turbulent times ahead.

Still, the sun is strong and bright now. Shouta blinks it away. It hurts his eyes.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it,” he exclaims as enthusiastically as he can. He doesn’t believe it is a particularly beautiful day—frankly, he’d rather be lying snug on the floor in his sleeping bag, dreading grading. Regardless, this is what he remembers adults telling him once, when he was Shouto’s age. Go play outside, get some fresh air, don’t look at the sun—all that jazz.

“Yes sir.”

Shouta sighs. He should’ve expected that answer by now.

It doesn’t stop it from sounding dissonant still.

He slides the backpack from his shoulder to the ground. Crouching, he makes it a point not to look at the boy as he unpacks: two bottles of water, energy bars, plastic bags—and a ball. It’s a small thing, one he can hold easily with a single hand, that the boy will probably need two to do the same. Shouta weighs it for good measure, throws it in the air once, brakes its spin with the palm of his hand, then throws it at the boy—

Shouto side-steps.

The ball falls.

They look at each other.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever played catch,” Shouta remarks.

“No sir.”

“You catch the ball, Half a Halfie!” a third voice exclaims.

Both the wording and their gravelly quality leave no room for mystery, and sure enough, Shouta watches as Bakugou appears from behind foliage, power-walking up to them with a replica of his usual scowl on his face. Crimson eyes hone in on him as the teenager approaches. “Oh, don’t give me that face, Sensei. Jogging’s a fucking crime now?”

“Mind your language, Bakugou,” Shouta rebukes drily.

The teenager just scoffs as he reaches them in a few more strides. His black tank top clings to his figure, sweat drips from his brow and he wears black joggers with those highlighter orange running shoes of his.

Of course, Shouta thinks—Bakugou runs. He should’ve accounted for that…

Despite feeling thrown by his oversight, Shouta allows himself a moment to take stock of his student. He looks… better, Bakugou. Better than he had a few days ago at breakfast, at the least. His eye bags are less prominent, his features more animated—but the shadows on his face are just a little too long.

Even Bakugou can’t outrun them, then...

For a moment, Shouta lets his mind wander to his other kids. He wonders to himself if Midoriya got any sleep recently, if Uraraka ate at all, if Yaoyorozu’s poured salt into her tea again… Sero often displaces things like his mangas when he’s preoccupied, he knows, and Koda forgets how to speak. Ashido also tends to get into unwitting fights with Tokoyami when she’s anxious, since she rants and he revels in silence—which all leads Kirishima to getting teary-eyed over ‘unmanly arguing’…

Dammit, Shouta wants to check on them. Excluding Midoriya and Bakugou, he hasn’t seen any of them since the wake.

He needs to check on them.

“Now that’s a load of bullshit,” Bakugou’s voice exclaims suddenly. “Ain’t no way you’ve never played with a goddamn ball before!”

Returning to the present, Shouta flashes his eye red. “That is quite unhelpful, Bakugou.”

“What. You telling me you actually believe this crap?”

Little Shouto’s hands clutch into fists at that, shaking with barely restrained emotion—but his voice is level when he speaks through clenched teeth.

“I don’t lie.”

Bakugou chokes on his spit. “Oh yeah?” Something in his voice sounds off, something in his grin too sharp. “Who’s your favourite hero, then?”

A beat of hesitation. “Endeav—”

“Liar.”

The ball crashes into the child’s torso so fast, it’s only when it falls to the grass that Shouta realizes that Bakugou threw it at all.

Frustration simmers under Shouta’s skin. “Enough,” he orders, reaching for his capture weapon. “Violence will not be tol—”

A trail of frosted air zips past his ear and Shouta halts. When he follows its trajectory, he finds young Shouto, his body twisted from pitching the ball, his eyes dripping vitriol. He shows no signs of having noticed his interruption of Shouta’s movements.

Only anger, dangerous and raw.

“Don’t call me a liar,” he commands, his voice surprisingly even. Quiet. “You don’t know me.”

Bakugou grins, something humorless and incisive. Almost painful. Shouta’s hand tightens—he needs to act.

“Guess you’re right,” Bakugou says though, surprisingly calm. He sends a furtive, loaded look Shouta’s way—and Shouta finds himself compelled, somehow, to loosen his hand from his capture weapon. “Tell you what though,” Bakugou continues, eyes sharp again and on the boy again, “you’re a lot like an airhead I do know. He’s got that same dumb face as you whenever he’s clueless, which is most of the fucking time.”

With a quick motion, he drops the water bottle he carried on his run to his right, drops the bag that was carrying it to his left, then he plants himself in the middle, rolling the ball to his feet with a glare.

A challenge in his eyes.

“How ‘bout this then, Chicken Little—”

He kicks the ball, Shouto reflexively stops it with his foot—and Bakugou grins.

It looks real this time, his grin.

“Score against me, and I’ll answer a question.”

For a long moment, Shouto stares, stunned. Like he doesn’t know what to make of this development. He never once glances Shouta’s way, which likely means he’s been forgotten for the time being. Evidently, Bakugou’s challenge is breaking down the child’s defenses. He looks down at the ball at his feet, pondering.

“I’m not a chicken,” is what he finally declares, sounding confused.

Bakugou huffs. “Fuckin’ A.”

The rules are quickly and simply explained: the one who scores asks a question, the one who slips up answers, and any question’s game to ask. “Unless you don’t want to. That’s ok, I guess,” Bakugou clarifies, impressively insightful. “Just no fucking lying.”

“Again. Language.”

Shouta regrets speaking the moment he does, because instantly, Shouto’s head snaps to attention, he steps back once and his face falls again. It’s like seeing a puppet be stringed up after a moment’s respite, suddenly waiting to move as commanded.

Shouta has to resist the urge to swear himself, this time. It’s frustrating—to cause pain with just his presence.

He falters.

Now, Shouta is not an impulsive sort of man. Rather on the contrary, he abhors taking spur-of-the-moment decisions, they generally spiral into chaos quite quickly… And for all his intelligence and capabilities, Bakugou is a rather impulsive soul, one that he trails chaos in a way that can rival Midoriya.

That said, Shouta knows that the young child in front of him is in dire need of some answers…

But most of all, of a friend.

At this time, it’s also clear that Shouta can be neither…

So he takes a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“Very well,” he declares, veering to his right where there is inviting shade and a tree trunk with green moss at its base. “You two enjoy yourselves. I will sleep here. Wake me if you need me.”

“Why would we need you?”

Shouta sighs.

Hopefully, he won’t regret this.

It’s only when he jolts awake that he knows he’d actually fallen asleep. Not surprising in retrospect—he’s exhausted, and Hizashi’s always said he could sleep through Richter 9 earthquakes.

Regardless, something woke him.

“Fuck that, your dad can rot in hell for all I care, Tiny Twig. I sure as fuck don’t want anything to do with him!”

Yes. Well that will do it.

“Neither does Sensei, for that matter!”

Shouta cracks an eye open just in time to catch Bakugou, fuming, kicking the rubber ball towards a somewhat bedraggled Shouto. When the teenager’s words trickle into Shouta’s mind long enough to start making any kind of sense, he begins to wonder what exactly prompted this reaction out of Bakugou.

Why would Shouto think of there being a connection between Endeavour and Bakugou?

Distantly, he hears Shouto mumble the words, “what you would say if—” but the rest is just on the side of undecipherable.

Clearly though, Bakugou hears it. “Fuck you! I said it already—lying’s against the rules!” Then Shouta watches as Bakugou barrels the ball high over Shouto’s head in frustration, yet right in between the rock and the water bottle delineating his goal. “Take that, sucker! Now spit it out—fave All Might costume!”

Shouto runs off to catch the ball at the edge of a copse of trees then jogs back, a pensive expression on his face. He hesitates for a long moment, crouches to place the ball at his feet before looking up straight at Bakugou, resolve hardening his face.

“His golden age costume was cool.”

Suddenly struck with the image of how two kids become friends on a playground, Shouta watches as Bakugou grins, smug, stomping his foot in glee. “Well lookit that, Tiny actually knows his shit—”

He’s interrupted by the ball flying in between his feet in the exact moment where his balance is off from stomping—and his head snaps up as he catches Shouto biting his bottom lip as if to keep a straight face.

“What the shit?”

“I scored. You have to answer my question now.”

“You cheating midget—”

“It’s the rules. Don’t be a stinky loser.”

Bakugou buffers at this—and Shouto blinks dumbly, like he hadn’t actually expected those words to come out of his mouth. Shouta can’t blame him, it’s the first he’s actually heard this eight-year-old sound like and eight-year-old. He half-expects Bakugou to explode in anger at the unexpected name thrown at him.

He hoots with laughter instead. “Stinky loser?” he mocks. “What are you, four?“

“No, I’m—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugou waves him off as he picks up the ball. He starts dribbling it in the air with his foot. “Well shoot then.”

Shouto looks taken aback by his response, like he wasn’t actually expecting the rules to be followed after his surprise goal. He quickly recovers though, balls his hands resolutely.

“This morning,” he says at last, careful and deliberate, “Aizawa-san had my mother’s folktale book in his apartment. Why?”

“How the fuck?” Bakugou exclaims, looking to the sky for strength. “Look, dimwit, far as I know, Sensei and your mom only met two days ago at the wake—”

He trails off at that last word, his anger losing fuel. Concerned, Shouta can’t help but throw a glance at him. He catches the boy shake his head once then roll the ball with his foot until it’s in front of him and ready to kick again.

“Anyways, why’re you asking me? Fucking ask Sensei about your damn book.”

Shouto hesitates at that. “He might get angry,” he says eventually, his voice regaining its usual quiet and guarded quality. “I don’t know what he’s like when he’s angry.”

Goddammit. Why is this a question he even needs to ask himself?

Bakugou laughs though. Properly, genuinely laughs. “Kid,” he says, “I’ve only ever seen Sensei angry fighting villains or talking to the press. He don’t do angry otherwise. The worst he’d do to us is use his capture weapon or flash his eyes red.”

Shouta feels he should be offended by this description, but refuting it would also be factually wrong.

After a beat, Shouto inquires, something timid, almost hopeful.

“To… us?”

Bakugou’s answering grin is loud as thunder. “What, you think you’re something special?”

Then he kicks the ball, and the volley resumes.

Thirty minutes in, Shouta decides it’s time for lunch.

“Oh no, one more shot, I know I can beat—”

Abruptly, Shouto interrupts himself with eyes wide as saucers. He clearly hadn’t meant to say this out loud, and even though Shouta hasn’t said anything, he looks like he’s signed his own death warrant.

“Ha!” Bakugou exclaims mockingly, “like you could ever beat me. I was going easy on you, Tiny.”

“Is that so?” Shouta drawls as he approaches, telegraphing every movement and ignoring the oh-so attentive eyes on him. “I thought you always gave your all. Complete victories and all that.”

Bakugou harrumphs. “Yeah, I gave my all to go easy on this idiot.”

It sounds very convincing.

Bakugou stomps up to Shouto then, looking down at him with fire in his eyes. “Sucks to be a stinky loser, huh,” he grins self-sufficiently. Then he nudges the boy’s head, rough—but unmistakably fond, however much he would deny it—and makes a clear effort to ignore the initial flinch it causes.

“Rule still goes though,” he adds.

Ask anything. Just no lying.

His grin grows wolfish when the boy nods resolutely.

And then he’s off.

“You’ll never fucking beat me, Quarter Bastard!” he shouts as he jogs, disappearing into the foliage.

Shouta sighs. Clearly, it’s no use berating him about his language. He’ll just have to put him on cleaning duty, then.

Shouta looks down at the boy next to him, finds he’s being watched. As usual.

“You okay kid?”

“Yes sir,” the boy says, monotone. But then, he adds, “I… spoke out of turn earlier. I’m sorry.”

Shouta doesn’t even know what he’s referring to. “Don’t sweat it, kid. If you’d done anything wrong, I’d tell you. Like I tell Bakugou, yeah?”

It takes a while, but eventually, Shouto nods oh-so slowly. For the first time, he seems like he might actually believe what Shouta is telling him.

They’ve begun short the trek back to apartment when the child pipes up again.

“I…”

The kid stops walking and Shouta follows suit, looking back. The boy’s head is bent, his hands balled into fists, his lip caught between teeth as he chews hesitantly. Shouta wants to nudge him to stop, lest he hurt himself, but he refrains.

It’s the first time the kid’s initiated a conversation with him, is why.

When the boy locks eyes with him again, there’s a trace of fear there—but more importantly, there’s determination.

“Aizawa-san,” he says, “I wanted to ask… Have you met my mom?”

Shouta breathes, uncoils the sudden tightness in his chest. The kid sounds so desperate, like he’s just been given a thread to pull on, one he never thought he’d be able to reach again. So he gives him his undivided attention—turns and kneels in front of him so that they’re eye level.

“I have.”

There’s no point in sugar-coating things, he figures, but the boy recoils still. He blinks, his face half-frozen between careful indifference and the distinct agony known only to a motherless child.

“Was… was she the one who gave you the book?”

“She was.”

The kid swallows. It looks painful. His face softens.

“How…” he stops himself, blinks, then shakes his head. “Can I…” and again, he stops. It’s harrowing, seeing this boy try so hard to make sense of a situation so complex, to parse through his own tangled feelings at the ripe age of eight.

Eventually though, his features harden once more.

“I’m sorry I opened the book without permission earlier, sir,” he says at last.

Shouta tries for a smile. He’ll meet the kid where he is now, he tells himself, not push him to complete thoughts he’s not ready to form.

“I reject your apology,” Shouta says plainly. The boy’s eyes widen, and Shouta purposefully softens his expression.

“The book is yours, kiddo.”

He allows himself a moment to observe the response—how he blinks rapid-fire, how his mouth opens with a surprised puff, how his cheeks redden like this morning at breakfast. He looks young in that moment, younger than Eri even.

Shouta can’t help but smile at him. He hopes it looks reassuring.

“I’m proud of you for asking, kid,” he says, genuine. The boy’s eyes shine. Shouta gets to his feet then, dusting off his pants. “Now come on, it’s time to eat.”

He starts walking, the boy follows—and just like that, something quiet settles there.

Something like progress, maybe.