Chapter Text
“Damn rain,” Izuku hisses, shaking out his hair and flattening his ears. The alleyway is uncovered and narrow, which leaves the bobtail hybrid completely exposed. The whimpers of four kittens keep him on edge as he guards the pile of garbage sheltering them. Other than throwing curses at the rain, Izuku hunches down and tucks his tail to settle in for a long, wet night. Oh, he thinks miserably, how did this happen?
***
Sundays in the city were always exciting, whether it was being a part of the hustle and bustle of errands before the work week or watching people on outings while enjoying your own. There was always something to do or someone to watch. Luckily for Izuku, he was out enjoying both— Mr. Aizawa had sent him out to fetch some orders he had placed by telegraph and asked him to take Eri along for the trip for some fresh air. It had been a while since she had felt comfortable leaving her adoptive father’s estate, so the fact that she agreed to go with Izuku for errands was a huge win in his books.
He hummed a nonsense tune as he walked and gently wiggled the hand holding Eri’s tinier one, eliciting a sideways glance and a nervous smile from the girl. The pair rounded the corner at the end of the block to make their first stop— an instrument supply store to pick up new rosin for the bows and mouthpieces for the woodwinds. Mr. Aizawa taught at a very prestigious, very selective, very private music academy, but he also offered tutoring and supplemental lessons out of his house for those who couldn’t afford to attend the academy. While the extra lessons ate up his time and pocket change, he made more than enough to keep himself and his family comfortable.
“Money comes and goes,” he had told Izuku one day after going over the books together. “The people you help and the family you make stay much longer than coins in a purse.”
Family is an interesting word, Izuku thought as he exchanged the receipt for the ordered items. Despite the challenges that came with his social standing as a common gutter hybrid, Mr. Aizawa placed a lot of trust and respect in Izuku, giving him tasks more fit for a human assistant than a rescued street cat. With a friendly wave to the store’s clerk, Eri and Izuku headed to their next destination for some new sheet music books.
***
He had been living in the dumpsters of the city, heavily pregnant and scrounging for scraps, before the music teacher found him and took him home. The sire had no idea Izuku was expecting, since they hadn’t seen each other since the night the kittens were conceived, and he had no intention of finding the bastard to let him know. It was a wonderful night and wonderful company before that, but clearly that’s all he wanted if he was going to leave Izuku in that room to wake up cold and alone. It took days before he gave up looking and only a few short weeks before the symptoms started. The pregnancy was horrible, without consistent meals and unsanitary conditions, Izuku almost always had some form of the shakes and nausea. The final trimester didn’t pull any punches, and the bobtail hybrid had been moaning through the discomfort of Braxton Hicks contractions when a stranger approached him and brought him to a huge estate in the nice part of the city.
His savior turned out to be a kind, albeit stern, man who nursed Izuku back to health just in time for him to deliver. Most of the litter didn’t make it; the only three who survived had very weak constitutions for the first couple of months of their lives and still need to be careful during outings, but Shouta Aizawa was there the whole time. Through the grief, burial, and mourning, the man’s quiet sturdiness protected Izuku from the harshest realities of being a new parent. When Izuku was too stricken with guilt to clean his babies, Mr. Aizawa would bring them into the washroom during his own daughter’s bath time. When Izuku felt too weak to feed them, Mr. Aizawa would set all four children on a seated bench and carefully feed each child. When Izuku could finally rise from bed without pain from his heart or body striking him down, Mr. Aizawa taught him how to change a cloth diaper and hold his children to feed them, but never once indicated that the three siblings should be separate from his own child now that their dam was on the mend.
Never once did he treat any of them as pets or second-class citizens that was associated with hybrids; in fact, his own daughter was a white Siamese rescued from a terrible home and destined for the shelter before Mr. Aizawa saved her, too. Soon, Izuku felt he had been adopted by Mr. Aizawa as much as his children were. The dynamic didn’t make sense on paper, but in practice? Mr. Aizawa took care of the new family of four on top of his jobs and his own daughter with the silent stoicism that Izuku admired so much. As his strength returned, Izuku knew he wanted to contribute to the household and not just tend to his kittens. He regretted the months of wallowing as he missed out on so much of his children’s lives and depended so much on a complete stranger to take care of them for him. Since it was against the law to hire a hybrid in any respectable establishment and Izuku wasn’t about to pay back his debt by sullying Mr. Aizawa’s good name, he took on most of the domestic tasks. Cleaning, cooking, organizing music lessons, managing appointments, running errands– anything to prove he wasn’t a useless freeloader.
It wasn’t until Eri was stuck while practicing her violin homework that Izuku really got invested in the music lessons. Although he had never played violin, Izuku recognized some of the on the sheet music and could nudge Eri in the right direction with a keen ear and a gentle hand.
“Please teach me music, sir!” Izuku remembers bowing deeply to the master of the house, having never asked for anything before (and yet always receiving). Mr. Aizawa had only looked between the shorter man’s bow and his daughter’s face, screwed up with determination, twice before nodding in approval and beckoning Izuku to the primary study for his first lesson.
Izuku began with the strings: violin, piano, cello, and harp. Then some woodwinds: flute and clarinet. Finally, percussion: snare, chimes, and bells. Mr. Aizawa’s coworker and close friend, Hizashi Yamada, was preparing him for brass instruments, and Izuku was excited for the next challenge, taking to music like a fish to water (or a cat to fish). His feline ears made it easier to pick up a tune, and his reflexes kept his hands in time with his mind. Mr. Aizawa had already assumed that hybrids would pick up music faster than an average human after seeing Eri enjoy it with the same vigor, but Izuku’s progress in 5 years basically confirmed his theory.
The years passed quickly, and before long, Izuku became Mr. Aizawa’s teaching assistant, secretary, and errand boy all in one efficient, meticulous, ambitious hybrid. Keeping busy was his bread and butter; he could multitask like second nature and only felt restless when he had nothing to do. His life is filled with luxuries he couldn’t have imagined half a decade ago— his children’s bellies are always full with a perfect balanced diet, his bed is a mattress stuffed with goose feathers not rotting paper, his mind can indulge in any genre of literature that the massive manor library holds, and his ears and fingers are treated to the sounds and feelings of the highest quality instruments.
“Why are you smiling, big brother?” Eri’s little voice brought Izuku out of his stupor. He hadn’t realized how big his smile had gotten as he considered his many blessings, and he looked down at Eri holding the remnants of the last errand (a bun from the patisserie Mr. Aizawa favored). It took Izuku a while to think of a concise answer, so long that by the time he was ready to tell Eri, she had already finished the last bite of her pastry.
“I am so blessed to be here,” he settled on, squeezing the girl’s little hand lightly and adjusting the shopping bags in his other hand. The estate came into view with a single turn around the corner, and Izuku felt his face soften. “Let’s go home, Eri.”
***
Izuku’s head hurts. His neck hurts. His whole body hurts as he regains consciousness. He hears the tires of an automobile squealing with friction as he catches sight of a paint-chipped truck skidding away. He and the children were thrown from the back of a truck, which he doesn’t remember boarding. The children— Izuku scrambles to his feet as he hears varied cries of pain, shock, and fear.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, my loves,” Izuku shushes quickly, eyes darting, ears twitching, and tail flicking. Good lord, his heart was going to give out. “You must be very quiet now, please.”
His eyes well up quickly, but he refuses to yield to the tears; he has to stay strong for these four little babies. All cold and hungry in the entrance of a dark and dingy alleyway in the dead of night, without so much as a street name to go off of.
“I want to go home!” Mahoro cries, scrunching up her face and laying her ears back in frustration. She had gotten up from her tumble the fastest, always being the most durable to physical discomfort, but clearly still upset with the situation.
“Where is home? Where even is here?” Kota’s bottom lip is starting to tremble despite his brave tone. His hat got lost somewhere between home and here, so his petite ears are getting waterlogged by the puddle he fell in.
Katsuma doesn’t say anything; he’s crying too much and whimpering from the scrape on his elbow to come up with words to voice his upset. Izuku takes off his necktie to wrap the wound, longing for the gauze and disinfectant in the medical bag at home.
Eri is wringing her hands anxiously, and her big eyes are getting wetter with tears by the second as she stares at Izuku. “My daddy will get us, right?”
Oh, how his heart breaks. Izuku forces a wobbly smile and places a hand between Eri’s pointed ears. “I’m sure he’s looking for us right now. But we need to be very quiet, it’s-“ dangerous here, he thinks before he glances around at the unfamiliar buildings in various stages of collapse. “It’s not as safe as the city, so we must stay together, okay? Come now, let’s go back here.
All four kittens are sniffling softly in fear and cold, but they keep their voices quiet, just like Izuku said. They finish a small shelter just as the rain begins to fall, and are ushered into it quickly. As the rest of the children pile in, Kota gently pulls on Izuku’s damp sleeve.
“Papa, we are going to get home, right?” His sharp red eyes scanning for doubt in his father’s face. Izuku gives his eldest son a more genuine, softer smile and gently takes his hand.
“Of course we’re going home, my love.”
***
Home… what a perfect word… Izuku’s heart aches as he recalls the sense of peace he felt just that afternoon. The rain is relentless, and the smell of the alley brings back painful memories. The children are tucked under a fortress of wooden slats and cleaner garbage, but they’re shaking with fear and shivering from the cold. He misses Mr. Aizawa. He curses himself for missing the luxury he had grown accustomed to. Come on, Izuku, you were an alley cat before this, you can do it again. Only… he looks behind him at the pile of kittens snuggling together for comfort and warmth. Their little noses were all red and running. You have a family now, you can’t do it like before. The bobtail steels his nerves; he doesn’t know how they got thrown out of a moving truck into an unfamiliar part of the city or why, but they were together. And they would get home together. His youngest lets out a pitiful little half-sob, and Izuku rushes to comfort him.
“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here.” He murmurs, turning to press his palm against Katsuma’s face. “I’m here.”