Chapter Text
The remaining few days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve passed without any more incidents.
The kids were still busy with their presents. Shota already feared the second wave of presents, when their coworkers would learn, that the adoption had been made official. The kids would get so much more clothes, books, toys and other things, that Shota and his husband would have to get creative, if they want to spoil their sons even more. Among the numerous books they had gotten were some with more educational themes, aside from endless novels, comics and manga. Other children probably would ignore books about hero laws or the evolution of Quirks. But Izuku and Katsuki were studying those books thoroughly. From what the heroes could observe, Izuku was quick to understand complex concepts, but was distracted easily and got lost in his own mind, then he needed Katsuki to bring him back to the main topic. It was impressive, given that the books were not especially written for children.
Another new development was, that Izuku had started to carry around one of his notebooks. He was writing in it often while mumbling and watching the news. Naturally, Shota and Hizashi were curious, but even when Izuku left the notebook somewhere, they didn’t open it. Their son would show them, what he was writing all day when he was ready and if he decided to never show them, that would be alright, too.
One afternoon, seeing them studying an especially big book about Hero History, Shota and Hizashi decided to finally address an important topic.
“Kiddos, we probably should talk about school,” Shota began. School was not an easy topic. Obviously, Katsuki and Izuku had bad experience with teachers and classmates.
The boys looked up from their books.
“We don’t have to decide anything now,” Shota continued, “we would like to know, if you want to go back to school?”
Katsuki scowled and knitted his eyebrows. Izuku looked down at the book.
“Online classes are an option, it’s up to you,” Hizashi added.
Katsuki and Izuku exchanged some unsure gazes.
“You don’t have to decide right now, you can think about it.” Hizashi gave them a warm smile.
“We want to go to school,” Katsuki started hesitantly, “but not that shitty school, where we had to go to at the orphanage!”
Izuku whined unhappily at the mention of their old elementary school.
“Of course not, we’ll not send you somewhere, where you don’t want to go,” Shota confirmed.
“We want a school with good teachers! They must be nice! Like you!”
The couple smiled. “Alright, Hizashi and I will look into some schools and we’ll make sure to find the perfect one.”
“Good.” Katsuki huffed.
Internally, Shota sighed and he saw his husband thinking similar. It was a great relief, that the boys agreed on going to school, but it would definitely take some effort to find a school, that would take Katsuki and Izuku. But that was a matter for the new year.
…
They spent New Year’s Eve at home. Shota and Hizashi had looked up some events nearby but figured a big firework spectacle with lots of people might overwhelm the kids and besides, the weather was forecasted to be cold and windy, so staying warm and comfortable at home it was.
Izuku was totally emerged in a special broadcast on TV, some sort of end-of-the-year-review of different pro heroes. A big investigation was mentioned, which had resulted in the arrestment of a whole organized crime group and some powerful villains. That alone had Izuku glued to the screen. But then Shota casually mentioned that he had been involved in that case and even told Izuku some details. Izuku was basically buzzing with excitement and admiration. Shota noticed the small twitching movements of Izuku’s hand. The boy was itching to write. When the underground Hero told him more of a villain with a Quirk, that could make them invisible in the shadows and how he fought them, Izuku suddenly jumped up and ran away. Shota was a bit confused at first, but not even a minute later the green-haired kid came back nearly toppling.
Izuku had gotten one of his notebooks. It was the one, he had been carrying around for a few days now. The green-haired kid hesitated a bit, but Shota waited patiently. Eventually, Izuku opened the notebook and looked for a particular page. When he found it, he turned the notebook around showed it to the Underground Hero.
Shota’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what he should focus on first, the fact that Izuku was showing him his notes or the notes itself. It was a page filled with information about Eraserhead. A rough sketch of the hero and lots of facts, data and information. Shota was very impressed. As an underground Hero there wasn’t exactly much information on him going around and at home he didn’t exactly behave like he did, when he was at work. Yet, Izuku had collected and figured so many things about him. There was a whole page about his capture weapon, filled with theories and questions. His fighting strategies and style was analyzed. All of it sprinkled with small details, nobody ever would pay attention to.
Of course, everything was still written by an eight-year-old, who was missing an essential part of education. Meaning: there were lots of spelling mistakes and other inaccuracies. Yet, it was impressive. They had known Izuku was incredibly smart, the mumbling habit proved that easily, but only Katsuki could keep up with Izuku’s lightning-fast analysis and mumbling, so seeing all these information collected was striking. Shota was dying to see what Izuku would be able to do if he was given the right education. He had no doubt, if he would show this notebook to Nezu, Izuku would immediately have a place at UA reserved. And Katsuki was in no way less smart, sometimes Izuku was too fast even for him, but he clearly could keep up with the way Izuku was thinking. Nezu had to save two spots in the Hero Course.
“Kiddo, this is brilliant,” he finally said, when he noticed, that his silence while absorbed in his thoughts had taken a while and made Izuku nervous. The kid perked up.
“R-really?”
“Yes, I’ve worked with some top analysists, and I think you can outsmart all of them,” he answered, while flipping though some more pages, slowly to give Izuku the chance to protest and watching for any sign that he was not welcomed to read further. He saw pages about Best Jeanist, Endeavour, Hound Dog and some other Heroes. There was even a page about Keigo.
Eventually, he closed the notebook and noticed the title with the ‘Nr. 3’, indicating that Izuku had at least two more notebooks.
“Thanks for showing me this Izuku,” Shota handed the object back. Izuku had become a bit nervous about having it given to someone else. “Do you want to learn more about the material of my capture weapon?”
Izuku’s green eyes widened at that suggestion and he nodded so eagerly, that his green curls flew back and forth.
“Alright then.”
So, Shota went to get his capture scarf and spent the rest of the afternoon answering Izuku’s mostly quietly whispered questions and watching the kid scribbling down every new bit of information.
Meanwhile, Katsuki had another mission. He was interested in what Hizashi was doing in the kitchen. The poor man could barely take one step without a blonde-haired kid suddenly spawning around him and had actually to pay attention not to run into him. Katsuki was watching everything in detail, totally oblivious about how he was not subtle. If Hizashi took something out of a fridge or a closet, Katsuki checked afterwards what exactly it was and the hero had no doubt, that the kid was memorizing every ingredient and step Hizashi did while cooking. It was adorable, especially when Hizashi finally asked Katsuki if he wanted to help and the boy scrunched his nose displeased about being caught in his spectating, but then he nodded and demanded to know how everything worked.
Hizashi chuckled at the pool of endless questions Katsuki had, answered and showed him everything with patience.
The evening went perfect. Izuku and Shota helped setting the table and Katsuki insisted on taking pictures of the food, which Shota had to send Tsunagu because Keigo should see them. They were eating Toshikoshi udon with different toppings and Katsuki preened himself on the food he had helped making. And Izuku ignored the fact, that Hizashi was mid-eating and shyly demanded the hero to look at the notebook page about Present Mic.
“Oh my, Little Listener, this is amazing!” The Voice Hero cheered and had to keep the volume of his voice in check. The notebook page with the sketch of him in his costume and the data and comments were just so good. Izuku had obviously carefully collected every bit of information he could get.
“May I look through the book? You can say no if you don’t want me to,” Hizashi asked the boy, making it clear, that Izuku could decide to not let him see the rest of the notebook. But Izuku gave a shy nod and looked down to hide the faint embarrassed blush, that had been caused by Hizashi’s reaction.
The Voice Hero flipped through some of the pages and was impressed by all that knowledge collected on the scribbled pages. He snorted a bit, at the thought of Gang Orca’s reaction, if he knew that there was a perfect detailed analysis of his last fight written and drawn with colored pencils.
“Deku and I are going the best heroes, I’ll be the strongest and he’ll be the smartest, we’ll be Number One,” Katsuki exclaimed proudly and Izuku’s face became beet red at the attention and praise. None of the adults could disagree.
Eventually, it was midnight and therefore the beginning of a new year.
Hizashi got some sparklers and small table firework, much to the kids’ joy.
“This is so much better than last year at the orphanage,” Katsuki said while he watched closely the small firework that spit very small colorful sparks in random intervals. He tried to time his own sparling explosions and was engaged in some weird competition with the small festive party object on the table with rules only he knew.
“Mmhmm,” Izuku hummed in agreement and whirled his sparkler around, drawing random shapes in the air.
Shota leaned against his husband and put his head on the warm shoulder. They were sitting at the table in the kitchen, as Shota forbade his sons (and his husband) to take the firework objects to the living room.
“Happy New Year, Little Listeners.” Hizashi said, when the clock finally hit midnight.
“Happy New Year, Kiddos.” Shota said, as well.
The kids stopped their bickering for a moment, looking at each other.
“Yeah, Happy New Year,” Katsuki answered.
“H-H-Happy New Year,” Izuku joined in, a bit quieter than Katsuki, but loud and clear.
For the first time, Shota looked forward to the annoying chitchat with his colleagues, when they would all brabbling about their holidays, because if someone asked him or Hizashi, they would say, the very small party in their kitchen was the best New Year’s Eve ever.