Work Text:
When Nezu agreed to let Eri stay at U.A., none of the teachers saw a problem. They spent everyday training and dealing with teenagers, so how bad could a child be?
The first few days there had gone by without an incident. Aizawa spent most of his time with Eri at his side, the little girl sitting in on his classes because she wanted to be around Midoriya and Aizawa was even seen carrying her around on his shoulders as he showed her around the school. Once classes were over, Aizawa would rest in the dorm lounge so the students could see Eri. She usually fell asleep on the couch as the students went about their business just an hour after it got dark.
It was only a couple weeks later when things got out of control. Aizawa, having to leave for a meeting off school campus, had entrusted Eri to Midoriya and be babysat without a problem. The two stood by the school gates, waving Aizawa into the cab.
Midoriya knelt down beside the girl and smiled.
“What do you wanna do, Eri-chan?” He asks with a tilt of his head.
Eri looks down at her shoes. She had gotten better about speaking up, but it was obvious that today wouldn’t be that easy.
“How about we get some candy apples and see what the others are doing, hm?” She brightens at the mention of apples and nods. Midoriya turns his back to her and crouches down- a silent invitation to climb on. Once her little arms have gone around his neck and he has a proper grip on her legs, he starts jogging. He takes his time going through the campus, swaying right ‘n’ left sometimes and making silly airplane noises or spinning around in circles. Each attempt got him a giggle from Eri or a happy ‘whee!’
Midoriya had never had any siblings, so he didn’t have a chance to get the experience of growing up with one. His mother, however, used to work part-time at a daycare when he was an adolescent, so he at least remembers how to keep children entertained.
When the two enter the dorms, they are both carrying a candy apple; Midoriya’s is made to look like All Might, with marshmallows dyed yellow for the eyebrows, and Eri got a candy apple that has a little princess crown on it. Kaminari and Ashido are sprawled out on the couch, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu at the table sharing tea and talking in soft voices, Uraraka is with Tsuyu and Iida talking about a tv show, and the rest were probably in their dorms.
“Hi Eri-chan!” Uraraka greets when she sees the two enter. Eri hides her face in Midoriya’s hair. “Where did you get the candy apples from?” She raises an eyebrow at the sweet treat. Kaminari perks up from the couch.
“You got candy apples and didn’t get some for the rest of us?” He clutches a hand to his chest. “I am wounded!”
“Sorry guys, I should’ve thought about that.” Midoriya sheepishly chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. Before he can take his hand away, Eri clutches at his hand. His heart drops when he realizes this is the first time Eri has been surrounded by so many people in her new home. At the Cultural Festival, she had been so distracted by everything around her to take in the large amounts of people, and when she was first brought here Aizawa made sure she got to bed early to nap.
Midoriya tries to nonverbally explain this to everyone in the room (stumbling over his words numerous times, making odd noises, furiously pointing to each one of them, etc.), before cringing at a loud bang further down the halls.
“Alright, which one of you fucking bastards was it?!” An angry voice boomed. Eri’s grasp on Midoriya’s finger grew so tight he thought it would break off. A fuming Bakugou comes storming down the hall, with a worried Kirishima following behind and desperately trying to calm his angry friend, but to no avail. Midoriya notices how Bakugou’s hair is soaking wet and his shirt is partially drenched. “Was it you, raccoon eyes?”
“Don’t look at me!” Ashido calls out. She was painting her nails on the couch and kicks Kaminari in the gut with her bare foot. “Kaminari said it would be payback.”
“I- now wait, Baku-” Kaminari’s poor attempt at solving the problem is cut short when an explosion hits him in the chest. Bakugou straddles him down to the couch and brings his arm back.
Just when he is about to release another explosion, a quiet cry plunges the room into a deathly silence. Midoriya is on the ground trying to calm a distraught Eri. Eri has tears streaming down her face, her shoulders are trembling, eyes are wide with fear, and her candy apple has dropped to the floor, now forgotten. Uraraka is quick to rush over.
“Eri, it’s okay!” She tries hugging Eri, but the child only brings her arms up over her head and backs away.
Well, physical affection wouldn’t work.
Uraraka looks at Midoriya for help, who looks back for the same reason, equally lost. Ashido peeks up over the couch.
“Bakugou, Todoroki, you two had to handle a bunch of kids at the extra classes, right? Can’t you fix this?” After saying her piece, she ducks back down.
Bakugou looks outright confused as he blinks owlishly at the crying child.
Todoroki, in contrast, seems to have snapped out of his thoughts and moves over. He holds out his hand, an ice flower growing from his palm.
Eri blinks and reaches out to touch it. When her finger touches a delicate crystal petal, it poofs into harmless snowflakes that dance onto her hand. As Todoroki distracts Eri with different ice tricks, Midoriya goes to the kitchen to get some snacks.
The incident is soon forgotten as Midoriya takes Eri by the hand to his room, the two resting on his bed to watching cartoons on his phone for the rest of the day. Bakugou didn’t leave his room again until Eri was gone.
The second time Eri needs babysitting is because Aizawa got sick. Not wanting Eri to also get sick, Aizawa keeps himself in the teacher lounge and asks the other teachers to watch over her. Which is how All Might finds himself crouched down in front of Eri, who is staring at him with stars in her eyes. When he smiles, she shyly smiles back. He clutches at his heart at the adorable sight. So cute. Beside him, Midnight tries deciphering the instructions Aizawa gave them on paper.
“I don’t know why he is going through all this trouble,” she huffs as she turns the paper over in her hand. “She isn’t a baby. How hard can it be to watch her?”
“I think we’re doing good so far!” All Might flashes a smile at the R-Rated hero, who rolls her eyes at his optimism. All Might manages to get Eri into a conversation, mostly about her experiences at U.A.. Once her initial awe and shyness wear off, Eri is a rambling mess.
“And the flower turned into a bunch of snowflakes! Like poof!” Eri makes a boom with her hands and throws her arms up into the air to mime the snowflakes. All Might gives a fake gasp of surprise. She enthusiastically nods. “Mmm, mmm! And then-”
“ GooOOOOd morRRRRRRning U.AAAAA.! ” Mic, quite literally, kicks open the door, voice blazing. He has his hands on his hips, hair slicked back in its usual state, and a wide grin split across his face. He obviously didn’t get the memo. Midnight manages to slap her whip across Mic’s mouth to shut him up before he can make anymore noise, but the damage has been done. Eri, whom everyone has learned goes into panic mode at sudden surprises (loud noises didn’t seem to be the problem since she spent an entire evening listening to Jirou play electric guitar), has gone rigid. Her eyes are wide and glossy, mouth parted with no words coming out, and her shoulders have begun trembling. “Hey, isn’t that Shouta’s kid?” He asks after pushing the whip away.
“Yes, didn’t Aizawa tell you?”
“Ah, you know he hates talkin’ to me when he can avoid it,” the blonde starts waving his hand around. He completely ignores the dark glares All Might and Midnight are shooting him and settles down on the ground by Eri. The girl takes a step back, her arms raising into a protective stance she must’ve seen Midoriya using at some point. “Hey there, tiny listener! I’m Mic, but you can call me Uncle! What’s it like being cooped up with these old geezers?”
“I’m only a year older than you!” Midnight cries.
“I’m not that old.” All Might mumbles.
“I bet it is B-O-R-I-N-G!” Mic completely ignores Midnight and All Might’s protests at being called old. Eri blinks at him. Her shoulders have stopped shaking. It seems her initial shock over Mic has calmed down once she realized that, unlike Bakugou, isn’t angry loud and won’t stay angry loud. He is just loud. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”
“Pretzel,” Eri murmurs, her eyes zeroing in on his hair. “You have a pretzel stick for hair.”
“ EHH??? ”
All Might coughs out into his hand, very obviously failing at hiding a grin. Midnight throws her head back in howling laughter. Eri blinks at the two laughing teachers in innocent confusion. She points at Mic’s gelled up hair.
“But he does.”
Midnight has tears in her eyes and All Might is hunched over wheezing. Mic isn’t speaking, for once- he is too offended.
Eri is, thankfully, tugged away by Snipe, who saves her from the chaos around them. He walks down the hall with her hand in his.
When she pops back up a good three hours later, she has a mini cowboy hat, almost identical to Snipe's, and all the teachers take pictures. They take even more pictures when Eri takes one look at Hound Dog, bursts into a bright smile, and starts petting his head while mumbling ‘doggy’.
The third time Eri needs babysitting she meets with the Big Three.
“Well! Who do we have here?!” Mirio asks the moment he sees Eri enter the courtyard. Aizawa took the first year Heroic students out for training but didn’t want Eri to tag along in case something happened. Mirio was more than happy to watch over the little girl, and Nejire wouldn’t shut up for ten minutes about it. Tamaki was more hesitant to the idea, but as he leaned against his friend’s shoulder, Mirio could see him relax.
A happy smile spreads across Eri’s face and the girl is soon running over, her red backpack, most likely carrying her toys and such, bouncing against her back. Eri jumps into Mirio’s outstretched arms, who falls onto the grass dramatically from the impact. Tamaki gives them both an anxious look while Nejire claps her hands in glee. Mirio, however, just breaks out into bubbly laughter and holds Eri to his chest, “It's been so long!”
“Look! Look!” Eri cries. She sits up and tugs up her upper lip. Nejire lets out an excited gasp when she notices the missing tooth. “Dad said it’s only logi…logical to start losing teeth!” Her words come out a bit awkward due to how she is holding open her mouth, but Mirio understands her nonetheless. Tamaki is mouthing ‘dad’ and his brows are knit together in confusion. Pushing himself off the grass, Mirio lets Eri sit on his lap with his arms wrapped her in a back hug. Tamaki takes a minute before scooting close again, head slowly resting back on Mirio’s shoulder just like it had been before.
“Hey, hey, did you know Amajiki loses his teeth all the time?” Nejire scoots herself closer so she could join the conversation.
Eri shakes her head while Tamaki buries his face in Mirio’s shoulder in embarrassment, making the blond laugh. “His quirk lets him take on the characteristics of whatever he eats!! So if he takes on something with big teeth-”
“Why me?” Tamaki mumbles in despair. He seems to have accepted his fate and has fallen down to the grass. Face-first.
“What happens if you eat grass?” Eri asks. She peers around Mirio’s arm so that she could look at the boy currently rethinking all his life decisions. The three students fall silent. “Would you get all green and skinny?” She tacks on after taking a moment to think.
It only takes the group fifteen minutes before Nejire is running into the school building with her hands full of grass. When Aizawa comes back with the Heroic classes, he finds Tamaki’s skin turned green and dozing, Nejire sprawled over Tamaki’s stomach, asleep, and Eri sitting on Mirio’s shoulders as he walks around in circles, telling her a story from his internship days.
The fourth time Eri needed babysitting didn’t actually count as babysitting- it was more out of comfort than anything.
It is late at night and Eri had managed to sneak out of her bedroom, which is a spare room in Aizawa’s apartment on campus. Still, in her pajamas, she sneaks her way to the student dorms. She furiously wipes away at the tears streaming down her face. Everyone wants to see her smile- she should smile because she is safe. But still, they keep on falling. There isn’t anyone in the dark dorm, all the students asleep for the next day. Eri stands by the couch, lost. She hasn’t been in the student dorms much, and thus never got a proper tour of the place.
“What are you doing here?” Bakugou questions suddenly. He had just come out of the kitchen with a carton of milk in one hand and the other ruffling around in his hair. He doesn’t have his hearing aids in, so his voice comes out louder than he’d intended. He may not be deafer than his old man, but hearing properly from his right ear was still hard.
Eri jumps and stares at him with wide eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that; I’m not gonna attack you,” he rolls his eyes at the absurd idea. While he may not enjoy being around children, he would never attack one deliberately. That was decidedly unheroic. Bakugou blinks when the moonlight shining through the windows shifts and reflect off her face.
Her cheeks are wet.
He sighs. Of course he has to deal with a crying child who is probably terrified of him. “C’mon,” he walks back into the kitchen.
The fridge being reopened lights up half the kitchen. Bakugou turns and blinks when he sees Eri actually listened. He didn’t actually expect the kid to follow. “Uh, Deku kept saying you like apples, right?” Eri gives a nod. “Right, I know birdbrain has some stashed away…” Bakugou starts tugging things out of the fridge, moving aside Kirishima’s protein shakes and cringing at Kaminari’s poor excuse of ‘food’. A hidden box of apples is found and set down on the counter. Keeping the fridge door open for light, Bakugou grabs two glasses from a higher cabinet and pours milk in both. “Do you like chocolate milk?”
“What’s that?” Eri has stepped up beside him now. Her voice comes out louder as well, making it easier to hear. Perceptive little shit, Bakugou can’t help thinking. She stands on her tippy toes beside him and peers over in curiosity. He snorts and puts the glasses into the microwave to heat up a bit. After patting around in the lower cabinet he smirks; of course Sato stashed some cocoa powder away as well. The microwave beeps. Bakugou moves to grabs the glasses only to find Eri beating him to it, her small hands hugging the glasses. “Why does it have to be warm?” She asks after she hands the glasses to him. He uses his teeth to open up the package, pouring a good amount in each glass with some sugar and starts stirring. Once all the mixture is gone he sets down a chopping board, grabs a nearby knife, and starts cutting up an apple for Eri.
“It’s so the chocolate melts into the milk properly,” he explains while cutting. Eri grabs the uncut apple off the counter for him. Reaching into the top cupboard, Bakugou grabs a random bowl. His eyes squint when he sees Elsa on it. That’s for a more awake Bakugou to take care of, not barely able to hear, tired, and babysitting Bakugou to deal with. Eri also takes the bowl with the apple slices. Bakugou kicks the fridge door shut with his foot, leaving the moonlight as their only light. Eri follows him without needing to be told.
They settle down on the couch, a glass of chocolate milk in each of their hands, the bowl resting on Eri’s lap, Bakugou holding his apple in his free hand. “Why are you even up this late? Thought Aizawa-sensei would’ve fucking kept a better eye on you.” He takes a bite from the apple and picks up the television remote.
“Nightmares,” Eri mumbles. She plays with an apple slice around in her hands, eyes holding a faraway look that no child should have. “I got scared. Deku said I could always come to him when I get scared, but… I...got lost...”
“Deku is shit at advice, so don’t ever go to him. You’ll just start crying and he’ll start crying and it’ll just be a cycle of endless crying. And nightmares aren’t too bad once you get used to them.” Bakugou mumbles absentmindedly as he flips through the recorded programs. There were a lot of Ashido’s dumb reality tv shows, Kirishima’s wrestling matches, Todoroki’s weird ass documentaries, and Sato’s cooking shows. He settles on a rerun episode of an anime one of the other girls recorded and turns on the subtitles for himself. He looks down and almost jumps back when he sees Eri already staring up at him. Her eyes are red just like his, he notes. Maybe a couple shades darker.
“You get them too?” Eri asks quietly. Bakugou looks away with a stubborn huff. When he takes a sip of his chocolate syrup he smirks; it tastes fucking good just like he thought it’d be. A happy hum from Eri makes him glance back down. She holds the glass the same way he does, legs struggling to stay up on the table like his are, bare feet being pressed together to ward off the cold, unlike his socked feet. When he pushes her legs off with his feet she pouts.
“Sometimes,” Bakugou says vaguely. He doesn’t plan on pushing his own problems onto a kid. He throws an arm over the couch’s back and takes another sip from his chocolate milk, the apple resting on his lap. “They’ll get better. Wanna know a secret to defeating the guys in there?” Eri vigorously nods, the anime in the background forgotten. He grins. “Just fucking beat them up!” His palm accidentally sets off a small explosion making him cringe. Bakugou is expecting her to burst out crying, just like she had a few weeks ago, but Eri starts nodding in understanding.
“Ok. Can I make my hands explode like you too?” She seems really invested in this conversation. Bakugou blinks, then rolls his eyes. Eri’s already eaten half of the apple slices he had cut up for her.
“Hell no. There is only one of me and I’m the best, got that?” He gives her a prideful smirk. She smiles back. Conversation over, she turns to the anime playing on the TV, legs kicking around in the air once she realizes they can’t reach the table comfortably. Bakugou lets himself get distracted by the anime as well. It’s not long before Eri has fallen asleep. His attention is brought away from the anime (he needs to find who recorded the damn thing so he can get the previous seasons) when Eri slumps against him. Pushing her away seems like the best option right now, but the longer Bakugou stares, the more unlikely it becomes that he would do so.
Dropping an arm around her shoulders, Bakugou rolls his head back and closes his eyes, falling asleep. It is the first time in months he’s been able to rest after a nightmare without being thrown right back into one.
Midoriya comes out into the sitting room ready to start the day but gets hushed by Hagakure when he tries speaking. Walking as quietly as possible, he reaches the group of Class 1-A students gathered around the couch. Eri is snuggled up to Bakugou’s side with her legs tucked up on the couch and one hand clutching his tank top. Bakugou has an arm protectively hugged around her shoulders and his head lolled to the side, snoring softly. The students gently wake them up and, after Bakugou’s first reaction is to try blowing them all to kingdom come, rush to class, leaving Bakugou to let Aizawa know why the hell Eri was there without his knowledge and to call off the search party.