Chapter Text
“Papa? Dad?” Eri was feeding ducks with Hizashi and Shouta at the park. “How did you two meet?”
“That’s a great question, little listener!” Hizashi accented his words with dramatic gesturing, and Shouta smiled at the dramatics. “Your Dad and I met at the UA Sports Festival in our first year! He ended up kicking my butt-”
This was met with Shouta elbowing him in the side for saying that.
“Hey! It’s true! And that wasn’t even too much of a swear!” Hizashi exclaimed. “Actually, I have to admit the fight was the reason I fell for Shouta. I probably wouldn’t have pursued him so much if it weren’t for that fight.”
“He wore me down,” Shouta admitted.
“Tell me about the fight, Papa!” Eri insisted, and Hizashi responded with a wide grin.
“You’ve found my weakness, sweetheart-commentating! So, there we were, the final round of one on one fighting, waiting for the announcer to say ‘Start’ when suddenly-”
It was at that moment when someone accidentally brushed up against Eri, and she found herself in a huge open auditorium filled with what must have been thousands of people in the seats that lined the sides. She stood in the empty center of the arena, noticing how the grass beneath her feet had changed to rock.
When Eri looked up to more closely observe her surroundings like Dad taught her to do when met with an unfamiliar place, she saw two boys that seemed about Deku’s age on either side of her.
One of them had dark messy hair and tired eyes like Dad. The other had styled blond hair and sunglasses like Papa. They both wore UA gym uniforms.
After looking at her surroundings, Eri did what any sensible child would do when faced with a situation in which they were suddenly separated from their parents without a single trace of them to be found.
Eri started crying. More silently at first, but the tears soon grew into full-blown sobs.
“Da-daddy? Papa?” Eri cried out. “Where did you go?”
The two boys that were there didn’t know what to do. Soon enough though, the blond one stepped forward and reached towards Eri.
“Hey,” He spoke softly. “It’s gonna be okay-”
“You can’t-” Eri violently flinched away from the boy’s hand. “Y-you can’t tou-touch me. M-my quirk-it-”
Eri couldn’t make it through her explanation as she broke out into sobs once again. She could feel her control over her quirk waning, and her horn began to grow.
It was getting difficult to think about what her Dad and Papa said about what to do when she felt the grip on her quirk control slipping when she was so distressed, especially since her parents weren’t there to help.
This realization just wracked more sobs from her body.
Suddenly, the overwhelming feeling of her quirk growing stopped. Eri looked up to see the comforting and familiar gaze of glowing red eyes along with dark floating locks.
Eri found that her crying had stopped as she gazed up at the boy in awe.
“You have the same quirk as Daddy,” Eri found herself saying. She relaxed slightly at the realization. She couldn’t hurt anyone if that was the case, especially if he was planning on becoming a hero if the uniform was anything to go by.
The dark-haired boy’s widened a fraction, and he blinked in surprise, stopping the Erasure.
Eri didn’t mind too much when he stopped erasing her quirk. Knowing what his quirk was and that he was there in case she lost control again made her feel a lot calmer, which allowed her to think clearly.
“Thank you for erasing my quirk,” Eri said, knowing that it was important to be polite.
“What is your quirk, little listener?” The blond boy questioned, and Eri was again struck by an extreme sense of familiarity.
“Only Papa calls me that,” Eri frowned before remembering that this boy was probably just trying to help her. “My quirk is Rewind. I can rewind organic beings to a previous state. It can be dangerous if I’m not careful. That’s-That’s why I didn’t want you to touch me. Because then I might have accidentally rewound you to before you were born.”
“Oh.”
Eri turned towards the dark-haired boy.
“That’s why I wanted to thank you for erasing my quirk. I’m still...I’m still working on how to control it.” Eri brought her hands up to her chest and rubbed them together in a nervous manner.
“I guess, you’re welcome? Then?” The boy’s voice came out awkward and stilted.
“I’m Yamada Hizashi!” The blond boy greeted before gesturing towards the dark-haired boy. “And this is...uh...sorry, dude, but I don’t actually remember your name. I know they just announced it and all, so it’s kind of embarrassing for me to forget this fast, but-”
“Aizawa Shouta.”
It was then when Eri put two and two together. It was also then when she realized where and when exactly she was. It was also then when she realized she had interrupted a very important moment in history, or, at the very least, very important to her.
Eri wouldn’t know what she would have done if Dad and Papa never got together.
“Were you two about to fight?” Eri asked.
“I mean, yeah, kind of,” Hizashi flustered. “It’s more like a spar, really, you know? This is the UA Sports Festival, which I’m sure you’ve watched before, but it’s not like we’re fighting just for the sake of fighting, yo!”
“But I’ve interrupted it, right?”
Eri waited for Hizashi to sheepishly nod before speaking again.
“This is the final round, right?”
Again, Hizashi nodded. That only confirmed what Eri thought, which meant that she had a duty to make sure her dads would talk to each other and then fall in love and eventually get married and adopt her and Hitoshi.
“Alright. You have to fight then.” Eri turned towards Shouta. “Kick his butt!”
“Wha-” Hizashi choked, not really expecting the little girl who appeared out of nowhere to have an actual preference as to who won.
“Okay,” Shouta responded.
Eri exited the ring and stood beside the referee, who apparently didn’t do anything during that whole conversation. She also got out the earplugs she had in her purse in case Papa got caught up in a villain attack and was trying not to hurt civilians. It was also good for naps.
Papa talked a lot about how difficult it was for him to control his quirk so that Eri would feel better about making mistakes with her’s. And here, Hizashi was still young, so she knew he didn’t have as much control as Papa. Hence, the earplugs.
Eri gave both Shouta and Hizashi a thumbs up, giving them the smile that she was told made her look a little bit too much like them. Aunt Nemuri told her it was a ‘Totoro smile.’
Both Shouta and Hizashi took their eyes off her as they shifted into something more focused.
The announcer must have said start because they both sprung into action.
Hizashi didn’t use his quirk immediately, wise from knowing what his opponent's quirk was. Instead, he tried to play the long game, attempting to get closer to Shouta in an effort to catch him off guard.
Unfortunately for Hizashi, Shouta was much better at stealth than he was and was therefore able to quickly gauge Hizashi’s next moves.
Eri watched as Hizashi reached out to grab Shouta, only for the arm to be grabbed and for Hizashi to practically fly through the air. He landed within bounds, however, so he was still safe.
Hizashi stood back up and attempted to use his quirk. Shouta’s red gaze was fixed upon him. Hizashi attempted a more direct approach this time around, going to kick Shouta’s feet out from under him.
At least, it would have been a good strategy if Shouta wasn’t so quick on his feet. Shouta jumped and basically drop kicked Hizashi.
Hizashi used that moment to start shouting. At least, that’s what it looked like to Eri, but Shouta had clutched his ears with his hands, leaving him vulnerable to attack.
Hizashi led with a punch to the solar plexus, causing Shouta to double over in pain. But that didn’t stop Shouta from staring up at Hizashi and using his quirk once more.
This time, Shouta dropped down and aggressively kicked Hizashi’s feet, causing him to fall.
Before Hizashi managed to fall through, Shouta grabbed his arm and started to swing him around. When he let go, Hizashi once again went flying, this time out of bounds.
Eri cheered as loudly as she could. She couldn’t actually hear her own cheering, but she was yelling out from her lungs instead of her throat like Papa taught her to do when she needed to be loud.
Eri was also pretty sure he just taught her to be annoying to Dad, but she was glad to have the skill anyway.
The fact that she couldn’t hear her own shouting reminded her that she still had her earplugs in, which she removed.
Eri bounced down from the referee platform. She gave a thumbs-up to Shouta, who returned the gestured, and then she went over to Hizashi, who was still lying on the ground.
“Are you okay?” Eri asked. “Papa told me that this was when he fell in love with Dad. Are you in love yet?”
Hizashi was still pretty dazed from the fight, as he didn’t really respond to Eri.
“Hey.” Shouta walked over to the two of them, but Eri was pretty sure he was mostly addressing Hizashi. “That was a good match. You fight well.”
Shouta reached out a hand to help Hizashi up, and Hizashi stared up at Shouta in the way Eri had seen her dads look at each other when the other wasn’t looking.
Hizashi took his hand, and Shouta helped him get back on his feet.
“You did it!” Eri congratulated, elated by the fact that Hizashi had successfully fallen for Shouta.
“Yeah, kid, thanks for the support,” Shouta said, thinking that she was referring to him winning as opposed to Hizashi falling in love.
“You both did it!” Eri clarified, happy about the double-meaning behind her words. Papa would be so proud! He loved talking about that kind of thing in the books he read.
Although, she wasn’t sure when Dad fell in love with Papa, but she was sure it was some point after Papa decided to become friends with him, and Papa was only so persistent because he ended up with a crush on Dad.
But how to make sure that Papa wouldn’t give up?
“Yamada-san,” Eri addressed, using the term she used to call Papa when he first adopted her. “Don’t give up.”
And how to make sure Dad wouldn’t ignore Papa for the rest of eternity?
“Aizawa-san,” Eri said, thinking of something that Dad reminded her of often. “Don’t forget to have fun.”
With that, Eri once again found her surroundings changing around her, returning once again to the green grass of the park next to the ducks that were clamoring for more food nearby the blue of the lake.
“When suddenly-” Hizashi was still there, in the middle of his story, and Shouta was still there, listening intently, both seemingly unaware of the ordeal Eri just went through.
“I showed up!” Eri interrupted excitedly. “I was just there, and you two fought, and it was so cool!”
“And then you gave us cryptic advice and then vanished,” Hizashi finished the story.
“It wasn’t cryptic.” Eri stuck her tongue out. “I was trying to make sure you got together so that you would fall in love and then adopt me and ‘Toshi, and then be a happy family.”
“It was cryptic at the time,” Hizashi confessed. “But you want to know a secret?”
“What?” Eri’s voice got much quieter as Hizashi came closer in the universal ‘I’ve got a secret to tell’ signal.
“Your advice helped a lot.”
“Really!?” Eri exclaimed, feeling very pleased.
“Yeah, Sho was so stubborn. He should have followed your advice more.”
“I followed it plenty,” Shouta insisted. “My idea of having fun was sleeping.”
“Uh-huh. And that’s why it was so hard to become his friend. You’re lucky our daughter from the future came in to tell me that I shouldn’t stop trying. Where would you even be if I hadn’t?” Hizashi lamented. “Where would I be? I’d be a lonely old hag, and you probably would have become an old man with more cats than sense.”
“I would’ve had so many cats.” Shouta grinned his scary smile.
“But you wouldn’t have had me!” Hizashi whined.
“Or me!” Eri added on.
Shouta’s smile died down slightly to a more normal smile.
“I’d take you guys over fifty cats any day.”
“Oh! That makes me remember!” Eri said. “How did you fall in love with Papa, Dad?”
Shouta chuckled goodnaturedly.
“It’s not quite as dramatic as Hizashi’s story, but I’ll give you the main highlights,” Shouta started. “I think it started around the time when Hizashi realized I was struggling in English class…”