Chapter Text
Shouta glanced at his phone. The kids were coming over today with some friends from their new school, and he had less than fifteen minutes to prepare. Normally, he’d have said no, but he’d noticed such a marked improvement in Katsuki’s demeanor that he wanted to meet the responsible party.
At any rate, he found himself needing to restock his fridge. Between Katsuki’s love of cooking, Izuku’s stubborn insistence, and Tenya’s mother-hen tendency he was no longer allowed to live off of energy bars and jelly packs (go figure it would only take three kids to succeed where countless mentors and peers had failed), so he now had to frequent the grocery store.
Unfortunately, that meant the cashier and a few of the other regulars knew him by face at best and by name at worst.
“Ah, Mr. Aizawa! Good to see you,” one such regular said upon spotting him in the aisle.
“Mrs. Mizushima,” he replied, nodding politely.
“How are your boys doing?” she asked, standing on her toes to reach a jar. “They just moved into the neighborhood, right? Moving schools can be rough, I know.”
He’d long since given up on trying to deny that sort of assumption but this particular woman knew better and still intentionally referred to Katsuki and Izuku as ‘his.’ “. . . They’ve adjusted. Already made friends and most of their teachers have been easy to deal with.”
“That’s a relief. Well, say hi to them for me! See you around.” With a last polite bow, she was off, and he was left with a customer he’d never met before, whose face felt way too repulsive for how plain it was.
He watched the man out of the corner of his eye. Where had he seen that face before and why did it make him want to punch him?
The man had black curls and equally dark eyes set into an unremarkable freckled face. In fact, he looked fairly similar to Izu—
Wait.
He’d seen a photo of this man, back when Izuku’s guardianship had come up with Tsukauchi. Anger gripped his gut in a vice, and he swallowed back a snarl. Midoriya Hisashi. (Well, at the very least it was someone who looked exactly like him, so he shouldn’t bite the guy’s head off just for that. . . But if he went anywhere near Izuku, there were a few people willing to give him a black eye or two.)
“Excuse me,” the man said, taking a step back from Shouta. “Do I know you?”
Ah, he must have been glaring. “Well, no. You just reminded me of someone.” Shouta smoothed his face into something more neutral. “The resemblance is a bit uncanny was all.”
“Ah, I see. Well, it’s been a while since I was last in Japan, so I wasn’t sure if we’d met before and I simply forgot.” The man—whose likelihood of getting punched was ticking up slowly but surely—smiled, and it looked like some half-assed copy of Izuku’s.
Shouta gritted his teeth and asked, “Is your name Midoriya by any chance?”
The man blinked and canted his head to the side. “Ye-yes? How—?”
Shouta stalked off before he did anything he’d regret. It wasn’t even his place to get angry about it and besides, Izuku was happy where he was and had long since gotten over being left in the lurch. But seeing that bastard brought back the rage full force.
Izuku’s eyes had glazed over when Tsukauchi had told him he’d be staying with the Bakugous. He’d sat with them at the funeral, an empty space next to him and he’d latched onto Shouta the moment it was over and hidden behind him so no one would ask where his father was—
Five years. It had taken the bastard five years to show up in Japan and it certainly wasn’t for his son’s sake.
He let go of the fire in his gut before going up to the cashier (the kid was always friendly and efficient, and he didn’t need to deal with Shouta’s temper anyway) and paid for the food.
Unfortunately, the bastard caught up to him on the street outside and asked, “How do you know my name, sir? You mentioned I looked like someone you knew—”
Shouta dragged in a deep breath and prayed for patience. “I met your son the day his mother died, sir.” It didn’t come out quite as calm or rational as he’d intended, but this man hardly deserved politeness.
Midoriya opened and shut his mouth three times before he managed a word. “I—you—ahem” he cleared his throat and started again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister. My wife and children are all with me visiting my cousins.”
“Then your name is not Midoriya Hisashi?”
The man’s face twitched, and he huffed out, “No. It isn’t.”
“Hisashi! What’s taking you so long?” called a young man on a scooter, looking right at Midoriya.
Shouta raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the bastard and was rewarded with a shaky grin as he power walked to the scooter. “Just stay away from Izuku,” he said, raising his voice only enough to be heard. “You’ve hurt him enough.”
The bastard stopped in his tracks and looked back at him, but Shouta was already walking away. He had his own responsibilities to manage and that did not include beating the shit out of a civilian.
Aizawa’s apartment was pretty plain from the outside and really not what he’d been expecting. But then again, everything about this situation was outside of his expectations.
“Is he not home?” Nakamura asked, checking their surroundings nervously.
“How long have you been waiting?” a tired voice asked from behind him and everyone other than Midoriya jumped or flinched. Hitoshi turned, pulling himself straighter in defiance, and got his first look at Aizawa.
Baggy clothing, loose long hair, and eyebags that nearly matched the grocery bags in his hands were the first things he noticed. But in spite of this apparent exhaustion, a piercing gaze that met his defiance with something bordering on amusement made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. All told, first impressions said intimidating, which lined up with Bakugou’s respectful anecdotes about the guy.
“We just got here,” Midoriya answered, completely unruffled. “We didn’t want to let ourselves in with guests.”
“I see. Well, let me through then.”
They obediently parted before him, Nakamura sharing a look with Hitoshi that said, holy shit. Hitoshi might have cracked a smile, but something pressed against his legs and distracted him. A fluffy grey cat rubbed against him and went to greet Midoriya before trotting off down the street, silent in the way feral cats often were.
“Earth to Eyebags,” Bakugou hissed, nudging his back. “There’re more cats out back, so get a move on.”
He flushed and headed through the door. It was clean and well-lit inside, and Bakugou directed everyone on where to drop their bags. Hitoshi hung back, watching him and Midoriya follow Aizawa into the kitchen and unload the groceries, chatting about their day and about their experiment plans.
“Mm. There’s a place we can go for that,” Aizawa told them. “It won’t be hard to convince Hizashi, if you don’t tell him about the bugs. Speaking of, how long have you been planning something like that?”
“Pretty much since I found out he’s afraid of them—” Bakugou poked Midoriya in the back accusingly “—but the nerd insisted on proper precautions since he can blow out our eardrums if we’re not careful.”
“And he’s right about that.” Aizawa snorted softly and cast a glance at the three guests loitering by the couch. “Any of you have food allergies?” They shook their heads. “Then sit down and start on your homework or you can go out back and sit with the cats.” He gestured to a glass slider that looked out onto a communal backyard.
Hashimoto perked up and went to the back door, Nakamura hot on her heels. Hitoshi smiled and followed them, but when he went to slide the door closed behind him, he heard Midoriya ask, “Is something wrong?”
“No.” Hitoshi couldn’t see his face, but he sounded irritated and beside him, Midoriya’s hands stilled. Aizawa sighed and backtracked a bit. “Well, not necessarily. I just ran into someone unpleasant at the store a bit ago.”
“Unpleasant?” Bakugou asked. Hitoshi hadn’t been planning on eavesdropping, but Bakugou sounded concerned and that was worth investigating.
Aizawa hummed. “It didn’t seem like he was here to bother anyone, but your father came back, supposedly to visit some cousins.”
Silence sat heavy in the air. Hitoshi watched with some fascination as a previously-bristling Bakugou gently shoulder-checked Midoriya, rocking him slightly with the motion.
“. . . It’s fine, Katsuki.” Bullshit, Hitoshi mentally retorted. Midoriya did not sound fine. In fact, he sounded close to tears. “Even before. . . before Mom died, he wasn’t exactly around, so I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t care, right? It’s stupid that I care—”
Aizawa put an arm around his shoulders and Midoriya slumped against him.
Well that’s my cue. Heart in his throat, he slid the door the rest of the way closed as silently as he could manage and joined the other two in the yard.
“What was that about?” Nakamura asked him, raising an eyebrow. Hashimoto just watched him expectantly.
“Bakugou sounded concerned about something, I wanted to know what, and now I regret it,” Hitoshi recapped, scratching a stripped orange cat under the chin.
He might not know the full circumstances, but still. Bakugou had mentioned Midoriya lived with him, and he’d just assumed that meant he was an orphan. Now, it sounded more like. . . more like things Hitoshi didn’t want to dwell on, and Midoriya was the last person he would have wanted to go through something like that.
Hashimoto tapped his arm, so he’d look at her. Are they okay? Are you okay? she signed, slowly so they could understand.
He shrugged. It wasn’t his place to tell them; hadn’t even been his place to listen. “It’s not something we can really help with, but I think they’ll be okay. Aizawa’s dealing with it.”
Nakamura watched the door until the cat he’d been petting snagged his hand with its claws. “Okay, okay. I’ll pay attention to you.”
Hitoshi tried to drown his suspicions and imagination in cats, but not even having a demanding black cat perched on his shoulders could stop him from remembering the way Midoriya’s voice broke.
“Hey, Hashimoto?” Hitoshi ventured. She looked up at him, head angled. “Has Midoriya mentioned anything about why they transferred to this school?”
Sort of? He mentioned that Blasty’s parents moved out of their old neighborhood, but no more. She shrugged and then blinked, turning to watch an old woman open her back door a short way away and make her way over to them.
“Hello, kids. Haven’t seen you here before. Would you like some cookies?” she asked, wrinkly face pulled back in a big grin that showed off clean but sparse teeth.
“No thank you,” Nakamura told her, bowing politely without dislodging the cat in his lap. Undeterred, she went over to the back door and set a plate of cookies down with a note. Then she went to the next house and did the same. And then the next, and the next, skipping only one apartment on the ground floor. Then she went back to her own and didn’t come back out.
Huh. “Might have to ask Aizawa about that.”
Nakamura huffed an incredulous laugh. “I guess people here are a bit odd?”
“Understatement,” Bakugou informed them, matter-of-fact, as he opened the door and collected the plate of cookies. “Anyway, food’s done.”
Hitoshi gently deposited his two companions on the ground and stood, pulling Nakamura up in the process. Hashimoto signed her thanks to Bakugou as they went back inside.
Midoriya was just setting the last of the dishes out and he looked up as they entered, giving Hitoshi a good look at his face. He couldn’t spot any blotchiness and or redness around his eyes, so it must not have come to full on tears, but he clearly wasn’t himself either.
The mood lightened considerably when a blond man strolled in through the front door—Mr. Yamada, if he had to guess—and greeted them all enthusiastically. Even Midoriya perked up and, once they started eating, launched into an explanation of Hashimoto’s Quirk and some of the stuff they wanted to try.
Yamada grinned wide and he and Hashimoto fell into a signed conversation, eventually culminating in Hashimoto talking (well, he assumed she was since her Quirk made her voice too low for humans to hear). Yamada shook his head. “Darn, I can’t hear it, but that’s still super cool. We’ll definitely have to do that little experiment some time.” He leaned on one hand, frowning thoughtfully. “How loud can you make your voice, do you know?”
She shook her head and signed something along the lines of never measured it.
“What about you?” Nakamura asked. “How loud does your Quirk get?”
“Hm, absurdly loud, haven’t had it properly measured in a while. It can produce a shockwave.”
Midoriya chimed in with the theoretical range (based on his own research) and Hitoshi choked on his food. That sounded like a certain Pro Hero’s Quirk. He glanced at Yamada, studying his features. He didn’t look outstandingly like Present Mic, but there was a general resemblance certainly which—coupled with Midoriya’s enthusiasm and knowledge—made it almost a certainty.
He looked around the table and spotted Aizawa, eyebrow raised like he could read what was going through his head. Midoriya grinned at him too, and that was all the confirmation he needed. Holy shit indeed.
Later, he asked Midoriya about it, just to be sure he wasn’t reading all of that wrong.
“No you were right. Mr. Yamada is Present Mic.” Midoriya chuckled and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
“So then, how are he and Aizawa friends? Even just what I saw. . .” He shrugged. “It just looked like they’re complete opposites.”
Midoriya just smiled. “They were classmates at UA, and when they met, I guess Mr. Yamada decided he liked him and then just never left.”
Hitoshi stared at him, mouth inching open. “They’re. Both. Pros.”
“Uh huh.”
“What the fuck. . . I want in.”