Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku was not having a good day.

He doesn’t have good days to begin with-  but today? Today’s been one of the worst.

After having been made fun of in school (again), and having everyone in class laugh at him for wanting to be a hero, stupid Bakugo had blown up his notebook again and claimed he’d never be a hero and to just kill himself.

He won’t lie and say that he hasn’t thought about it. He never would, though- his mother would be absolutely heartbroken. He doesn’t know how she’d handle it if he did- maybe stop hero work all together?

He wouldn’t want to see the wrath of Midnight. The world would finally know the heroine had a son, a kid she left in the care of his surrogate mother as she worked as a hero. She did it to protect him- he knows that.

People didn’t know that the R-Rated hero, Midnight, had wanted a child immediately after she graduated from UA. After all, who would think someone who’s entire theme oozed sex appeal to want to be a mother, “destroying her body” in the process? People would have speculations that she wouldn’t be a good mom because of her behavior and personality. She didn’t have time to carry a child while trying to jump start her career- but she wanted a kid. She’d always wanted one.

He’d been the product of a sperm donor and Midnight, given to a surrogate mother he loved dearly.

Gestational Surrogacy, that’s what Inko had explained to him one day after the bird and the bees talk.

He knows that Nemuri loves him dearly. He knows that. And he knows that Inko loves him like he’s her own, too, but.. He just doesn’t feel like he’s wanted at times. Not at school, certainly. No one wants to be around the kid who fakes a quirk and hides his real one, even if they don’t know that. Why would anyone suspect a kid who coughs lavender clouds that don’t do anything to be the son of a hero?

His quirk is like his mother’s. When he breathes, if he wants it, the breath can knock someone out for hours, or not at all. While it doesn’t spread from everywhere like his mom, it makes him a weaker version, one that can fight only in close combat. He wears a face mask around people anyway- he sometimes loses control of it when he’s not thinking and he doesn’t need his school finding out.

The good thing about the sperm donor who fathered him, though, was fire breathing. Mix that with sleepy breath and he can exhale much longer, giving the chance for the chemicals to spread longer than they would if he was just simply exhaling.

So, his quirk was more powerful than the people in school thought.

It didn’t help him at all when the sludge villain attacked him. He couldn’t breathe, and no breathing means no sleepy breath. While desperately scrabbling at something, anything just to give him a moment to breathe, the terrifying reality that he wouldn’t be going home hit. His mom would lose her only kid. He was going to DIE.

And then, of course, the symbol of peace, the man the world adores, saved him. Stumbling for a moment to ask a question, one that he shouldn’t even feel he has to ask- his mother promised that he could be a hero, just like her, after all- he’d asked the few words that would crush his spirit.

“No, sorry young man! While I think it’s GREAT you want to be a hero, only the strongest of ones become the most successful! Er- Well, you know what, ignore that I said that. I just want you to consider the fact of how dangerous hero work is. Without a strong quirk, well... Think about how you'd be a liability in moments. It's good to have goals, and with every quirk there are downsides and great aspects to it! Just don't feel bad about becoming a doctor or policeman, instead!"

He’d blasted away after that, leaving Izuku under the bridge with a destroyed notebook and disheartened dreams.

Hence why, he’s only now getting home. The midnight boys have probably been ordered by his mom to search the city from top to bottom- he was supposed to be home hours ago, after all.

“Mom? I’m home.” He pushes the apartment door open, hit with the comforting smell of the apartment he’d only finally moved into when he turned 13.

A loud crash from the other side of the apartment means that she’s running as fast as she can to get to him. With a grimace, he drops the disgusting backpack on the ground and kicks off his tattered shoes. He’s just tired today. Tired and disappointed.

“Oh my god. Oh, izuku, sweetie, you’re okay.” His mother practically flies around the corner, Manicured hands covering her mouth, as she continues her run towards him.

He sees the way her eyes flick from the sludge caked in his black hair, to the scratches on his face and the singed shoulder. He sees the anger start to swirl in the blue eyes he inherited, as one hand gently reaches up to brush some dirt off his cheek.

“Darling, what happened? Because I’m not letting this go on any further. I did what you wanted, and didn’t get involved, but Izuku, you’re getting hurt. You’re getting hurt, and as your mother, I shouldn’t let that happen.”

“It’s nothing.”

He tries to brush past her, but with a quick flick of the wrist, his mother’s got a hold on him and she’s not going to let go. Not until she gets answers.

“Izuku, I asked what happened.”

The stupid torrent of thoughts in his head has only grown louder after the sludge incident, when all might’s punch shattered the villain and left Izuku with a ringing in his ears that hasn’t gone away. Bakugo’s stupid words, the laughs of his classmates, the way the teacher looked at him with pity at school, because he hasn’t shown the true power of his quirk so he’s “protected.”

“I got made fun of at school today, like every day because my quirk seems useless because I’m lying about it, like I have for years. I got made fun of, my notebook got blown into smithereens, and the teacher and everyone else laughed when I said I wanted to go to UA. And to top it off! When I was on my way home, I got attacked by a sludge villain who tried to drown me with it. I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to die. All Might showed up and saved my sorry ass! And the first thing he does when I ask if someone with a weaker quirk can be a hero? Nope! Only physical, powerful quirks are the most effective!! Be a police officer instead!” He yells, throwing his hands out and narrowly missing one of the vases his mother loves so much. “I’ve tried to overlook the assholes in my class, and look at how they’ll better the world as heroes instead. That’s what Inko always advised me to do, when I lived with her. Bakugo has an amazing quirk and as much as I hate him, I don’t want that chance taken from him. What if he becomes a villain if he gets his record tainted? What will children do, if Aldera is shut down and their parents can’t afford to send them to other schools outside of Musutafu? I won’t be the stresser for the creation of a villain.” He lowers his hands, looking up at his mother.

“I just want to be a hero, mom. I want to be like you. I don’t want to let you down.”

Nemuri’s eyes start to water, and as she pulls off her glasses and wipes her face with her sweater, Izuku only feels worse. He made his mom cry. What kind of kid is he, if he makes his mother cry over him?

She walks towards him, not hesitating to pull him into a hug despite the smelly sludge caked all over his uniform. Izuku’s stiff for a moment, but his thin walls crack and his defenses break as he starts to cry and hug her back.

“You’ll never let me down, Izuku. You’re so much stronger than you know, and I’m so proud of you. I’m sorry that you had to lie. I just… I wanted you to have a normal life, you know?” Her voice wobbles, a shaky hand resting in his dark hair. “When heroes have children and announce them to the world, it quadruples the risk of a villain going after them for revenge. I didn’t want to lose you, and Inko offered to practically raise you. She did such a good job taking care of you while I was busy, and I regret missing every important moment because I was working.”

“You’re a hero, mom, you have to save people and stop villains-“

“I’m your mother, Izuku, and my only focus should’ve been you.”

She finally breaks the hug, standing tall as she wipes away her tears with a sad smile.

“You don’t have to lie anymore. I can announce you’re my son, or you can hang out with the midnight boys and someone will start to connect the dots. I don’t want you to feel like that ever again.”

“I… I don’t know if I want that, though. I don’t want to lie anymore or anything, but… you said no one knows I exist. Not Present Mic, not Eraserhead. If you just randomly drop this, without telling them, won’t they be angry at you? I don’t want you to lose friends because of me. And the hero society as is- I don’t want to just drop this out of nowhere.” He sighs, kicking at the carpet on the floor. “Can we wait until UA?”

“Why then?”

“Because.” Izuku huffs, taking in a painful breath. “Because I won’t make it into the heroics program. Not right away. I’ve been looking into UA from the moment Inko told me who you really were, and not just my mom. Robots as the exam, right? I can’t get in that way.”

Nemuri deflates, sitting down on the floor. Izuku hesitates for a moment, before joining her a second later. It’s easier than sitting on the couch, and making sure the gunk never comes off of it.

“I don’t want to be recommended either. All I can think of is to try general education first- and transfer up into heroics if I get a good spot in the sports festival. That would be an okay time for you to say something? I don’t know, mom. All I know is that I need to train because I want to be a hero. I’m going to prove stupid All Might wrong. He’s not my favorite hero anyway, not by a long shot.”

He looks up from the floor, and smiles. “That title only goes to you.”

“You’re rotten, you know that? There are dozens of other heroes out there you should like more than me.”

Izuku shakes his head, smile tugging on his lips again. “No way. You’re my mom, you’re automatically my favorite. No getting around it. Sorry.”

Nemuri only sighs, raising her hands in surrender. “Fine. You got me.”

“Good.”

Nemuri’s playfulness disappears a second later, and with a hum, she stands to her feet and walks toward the kitchen.

“So, you don’t want to be recommended. I understand. You’ll be accepted into general without a doubt, I’m sure. But, before we can even think about that, you’ll need to train harder to get in shape. I know you’re exercising now just to keep up with the midnight boys, but I’ll have to ask them to amp it up. You can’t get into UA looking like a stick, what will that say about my parenting?”

“It’s not MY fault I got your body physique.”

“Oh, hush. You’ll train with the midnight boys, and when you get into UA, you’ll continue training with them.” She continues to scribble, tongue sticking out as she loops through the words. “I’ll have to get coffee with Eraserhead and Present mic before the school year starts. I don’t want Yamada to burst into one of my classes and see a mini me in the seats before having an impromptu heart attack.”

Izuku thinks about it.

He does look like his mom- more than he did when he was a child, certainly. If Present Mic came busting into the room and saw him, he’d connect the dots in a few seconds.

He wishes he could’ve met them as a kid, but Nemuri couldn’t allow it. He’d lived at inko’s most of his life- and whenever the two heroes came over now, he’d slip out to Takahashi’s, his favorite of the sidekick team his mom employed.

“Actually, you know what? Why not just invite them over now? It would be easier for us if I explain now, with you here.”

“WHAT?! No!! I can’t meet Eraserhead or Present Mic now! I’m covered in sludge, I smell terrible, and-“ he looks around, desperate for another flaw he could use to his advantage. “The kitchen isn’t clean! How can we let pro heroes into our apartment if the kitchen is a disaster? Oh well! They’ll have to come by another day!”

Nemuri cocks an eyebrow at her son’s antics, lips twitching into a smile as Izuku continues to ramble and panic.

“Go get in the shower, I’m cleaning the kitchen. You’ll just have to not be a fanboy and be prepared for Yamada to scream and probably pass out.”

Izuku tries to protest, but with her signature mom look, he sighs and starts to trudge out to the bathroom. She can only watch as he passes through the doorway. 

He's getting taller. 

She loves her kid and she’s proud of him. Maybe she didn’t make the best decisions, but she’s human. She did what she thought was best for her kid. You can’t ask for more than that.

“Yamada? Hey! Can you and Aizawa come over in about an hour? I kinda have something important to tell you both.”

Chapter Text

Izuku finishes ruffling his hair with a towel, humming some song as he peers into the mirror.

The scratches aren’t going to leave permanent marks, thankfully. It would be the one flaw on his face that prevents him from looking exactly at his mom. Looking at pictures from her high school days, he couldn’t find a difference. He even has a beauty mark like her- one that he’s proud of. Scratches would ruin that.

Only bad thing that comes with looking like his mom, and having her genetics, is that his vision isn’t the best. Wearing contacts at home is an unnecessary pain that he refuses to deal with, so glasses it is. Whether or not he uses either ways, he's still got terrible vision, and it's a curse that can't be fixed. It's not that bad, anyway, just ANNOYING.

Enough looking in the mirror though. He pulls the random t-shirt on, humming the same melody as he walks out of the bathroom and into the cold air of the rest of the apartment. He’s pretty tired- if his mom was serious about inviting his two favorite heroes, the two that she’s FRIENDS WITH, he hopes they arrive soon. Fighting for your life can wear you out, surprisingly.

Hands lightly tracing down the hallway walls, he walks through the decorated area while following the light of the living room. Today was bad, and the talk with his mom was even worse, but… he feels better. After getting it off his chest, he doesn’t hurt as badly anymore. He knows his mom is trying her best, and as a hero with an image that she HAS to uphold, there’s only so much she can do.

And she was just trying to protect him.

Yawning, he steps out of the hallway and starts to cross the wooden floor toward the kitchen...

Only to realize that his mother and the 2 heroes were on the couch, each staring at him with varying levels of shock before nervousness cracks his mother’s pitiful mask.

“So, uh. I have a lot to explain, but…” Her voice is high, high because she’s nervous, as Present Mic frantically looks between the two.

“I’m Izuku Kayama. Please don’t be mad at my mom. She only kept me a secret to protect me.” The words fly out before he can filter them properly, each one higher pitched and stressed than the last. Damp hair flops forward as he attempts a shaky bow, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.

Present Mic looks between the two of them again, unbelieving gaze flying from the sheepish Nemuri to the trembling boy bowing beside her, to Aizawa.

“You broke him. Thanks a lot.”

The last thing Nemuri expected was for Izuku to appear in the living room. She’d shot him a frantic text to NOT walk out here, but her guess is that he didn’t have his phone. He’d stumbled into the living room, and the look on his face and Yamada’s was almost comical.

And then, he spilled everything.

“WHAT?! WHAT THE FU-“ Yamada is cut off by a hand slapped over his mouth, as Aizawa’s gaze flickers over to Izuku.

“He’s a kid, idiot. Watch your mouth.”

“AS I WAS SAYING!! I know I have a lot to explain, and…” Nemuri cuts in before Yamada spontaneously combusts, gaze dropping to her lap, nails chipped of polish from her nerves. “You have every right to be angry with me after I talk. I did some things that probably weren’t the best, but I thought it was the best way to protect him.”

She pats the space next to her, and Izuku hesitates for a split second before scurrying over and sitting down with a quick huff.

“I wanted to be a parent as soon as I graduated. I’ve always wanted to be a mom, and I know how uncharacteristic that sounds coming from ME, but it’s the truth. I knew, however, that as soon as I graduated, that I couldn’t become a mother the way most people do. I had to make sure my career, my life as a hero, was secure before I could even consider bringing in a new life. So, I looked, and I found a surrogate willing to help.” She sighs, hand reaching up to brush away stray hair from her eyes. “I should have told you two, and I’m sorry. But as an expectant mother, I knew that I had to protect him above everything. I didn’t want to bring him into the world of heroes. I didn’t want him to grow up in spotlight, and have people wanting to try and kidnap him. My entire persona at that age was sex appeal. If I brought out a kid into it all, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my career. I know I should’ve told at least you two, but in a scenario where anything happened, I wanted no knowledge of my son to exist. The only ones who know are his surrogate mother, who raised him while I worked, and my sidekick team because when he was older, I couldn’t leave him with Inko all the time.”

Izuku leans against her shoulder, troubled eyes searching hers as she pecks his forehead quickly.

“I understand if you’re angry. We’re close friends, and I should’ve trusted you with this. You probably could’ve helped me raise this stinker better.”

“You raised me just fine, mom. You and Inko both.” Izuku cuts in, before she can say anything else self-depreciating.

“So.. God, hold on. I need a minute. Just a minute.” Yamada rests his head in his hands, blonde hair inching out of the hurried bun he’d put it in. “This is just a lot to take in. God. Nemuri, YOU’RE A MOM! And he looks JUST LIKE YOU!”

The yell shakes a few of their dishes, and Izuku winces as one of the vases falls to the ground with a crash, and shatters.

That was one from China, bummer.

“I- You aren’t angry? Either of you?”

“Irritated, maybe, but the world of heroes is different for me than you. I understand why you’d want to protect him and keep him away from the life you live. You’re a parent, it’s your natural instinct to protect him. I didn’t ever think this would happen, but no, I’m not angry. Shocked, concerned, maybe, but I know you acted the best way you know. I couldn’t be angry at you for that.” Aizawa says, voice gentle as Nemuri’s eyes start to water.

“I… Shouta, I don’t just deserve forgiveness just like that. We’re best friends, we have been since school, and I kept something about me secret from both of you for years. What would’ve happened if I’d died in duty? Inko would be slammed with raising him fully. If I’d told you earlier, and something had happened, he would’ve had someone to go to.”

“But nothing happened. You made the right decision off the top of your head. And I’m not here to judge you for that, I’m your friend, not your interrogator.” He rolls his eyes, “So shut your mouth with your self-depreciating talk because from what I can see, your kid loves you and you raised him right.”

“Kinky.”

“And, you’re back.” He sighs, rubbing his temples before turning, unimpressed gaze snapping to Izuku.

“What do you want to do in life, kid?”

Izuku startles to attention, posture going stiff as his eyes scream panic.

“I, uh. Well, I want to be a hero. I don’t have one of the best physical quirks out there, like, at all, but I still want to be a hero like my mom. Putting people to sleep doesn't SEEM like much, but I'm going to make it something powerful, just like mom did.”

Aizawa opens his mouth to ask another question, but Izuku’s beaten him to it.

“From what I know now, my quirk is basically just like my mom’s. All that’s different in the way it's released is that I can only breathe it out through my mouth, but it’s effects are the same. I put people to sleep, and from what we’ve been experiencing with?”

His face goes dark, fingers clenching the fabric of his pants.

“I can make them sleepwalk and like… control what they do while they’re asleep. I don’t know if my mom could do anything like that, but that’s what somnambulist literally means. Sleepwalking, sleepwalker.  They snap out of it whenever the sleep aroma wears off, or if they’re woken up. It’s not a very nice quirk, in aspects like that.”

Nemuri sighs, ruffling his hair once as Aizawa goes quiet. Yamada looks like he has a million questions he’s dying to ask, but before he can, Aizawa asks something else.

“Where are you planning on going, if you want to be a hero?”

“Oh! Well… I’m shooting for UA. I certainly won’t pass the heroics entrance exam, but I’m going to go through general education first. After that… I’m going to win the sports festival, and I’m going to transfer into one of the heroics classes, so…”

The fierce look in his eyes takes both pro heroes back to their high school days, when Nemuri first found them on the roof.

“Be prepared for if I land in your class.”

The silence that follows is only a few seconds long, before Present Mic chimes in enthusiastically.

“HAHAH! The little listener has got some serious SPUNK! Oh, kid, the stories I have to tell you about what your mother got into at UA. Oh, the memories! She was something else, always infringing rules and her first hero costume- WHEW. She was the reason they had to enforce costume regulations! I’m sure she hasn’t told you ANY of the things we got into as kids, no sirree, but LUCKY YOU, I remember a lot!” He  yells, fists punching the air in excitement. Izuku’s confidence melts away almost instantly, but the curiosity stays as a little mischievous fire sparks in his eyes.

“I’m always down to hear more stories on what she did.”

Nemuri rolls her eyes, before standing to her feet and walking towards the kitchen. She doesn’t have to look back to know that Aizawa is following her.

She feels like he’s the one who deserves the apology the most.

Once they’re out of sight of the two, Nemuri collects her thoughts and turns to her old friend.

“Thank you for listening to him talk. Apparently, he met All Might earlier, and it didn’t go over so well. He didn’t tell me the full extent of what was said, but I can’t help but feel it wasn’t what he needed to hear. He’s been keeping the true nature of his quirk a secret at school- well, not really. He just chooses not to apply it so it’s not REALLY keeping it a secret, but-“

“Nemuri.”

Aizawa rubs his temples, tired eyes shut momentarily.

“I’m not mad you didn’t say anything. I tried to make that clear earlier. Your kid is right. He’s not going to be able to do anything in the entrance exam because it’s robots. I hate they changed the test, but there’s not anything either of us could do about it, so don’t you dare try to change it. It’s illogical and could cost you your job.” He jabs a finger at her, and Nemuri sighs, jutting out her lip in the process.

“I know he’s right. But as a mother; it hurts that I know he won’t be able to achieve his dream immediately. Not that he should! I want him to work for it and to be happy with it, but.. I still feel like I pushed him to this by being a hero. I don’t want him to be something he’s not, even if he won’t tell me that. His wants are something I want to give him, and I can’t do that anymore. He’s growing up and can make his own choices now, like how he wants to wait until the sports festival to reveal his parentage.”

Aizawa snorts, but there’s the littlest bit of humor sparking in his usually apathetic gaze.

“He’s like you, definitely. Does he understand how many kids are going to want him out of the competition when it gets announced? In front of thousands?”

“There’s no reasoning with him on this. I made him keep his true identity a secret for years- the least I can do is let him announce to Japan who he is, in front of thousands of people, like the absolute drama queen he is. I know he seems shy, but he gets better if you get to know him. He’s a good kid.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“MOM!!!”

Izuku comes sliding around the corner of the kitchen in his socks, barely able to keep standing with Yamada right on his heels.

“You never told me YOU were the one that practically forced EraserHead to become a teacher!!”

Nemuri immediately shifts from serious talk to adoring mother, catty eyes glancing over at Aizawa playfully.

“Well, Present Mic was already going to teach, so-“

“I mean honestly, that’s so cool though, because he’s super stubborn and doesn’t take shit from anybody and the fact that you just basically bullied him into the position says a lot about you, mom, and I still can’t believe you managed to pull it off but that’s a good thing, since he’s the best teacher UA has at this point, and-“

“Wow, kid. I’m standing right here.” Present Mic deadpans, and Izuku whirls around, glasses slipping down his nose further as his hands start to flail.

“No!! No I didn’t mean that you’re a BAD teacher, just that- you’re a good teacher I bet!! I’ve never seen you in any classes or anything but I’m sure you are, I’m just-“ He blushes, covering his face with his hands. “Never mind. Forget I opened my mouth.”

Nemuri ruffles his hair as he has an internal crisis, gaze meeting the eyes of her friends.

She’s a mother, so maybe the feeling of concern about finally opening up about her personal life will always stay. She doesn’t know.

But she feels better now that she knows her best friends know, and that they’re not incredibly angry about her well-meaning secret.

She’s always wanted Izuku to meet them, anyway. And from their interactions so far?

She thinks it’ll only get better from here.

Shouta isn’t going to say that he wasn’t irritated by Nemuri’s news at first. When a kid walks into the room looking like the spitting image of your best friend, all rational thoughts tend to fly out the window. Especially for Hizashi.

But then Nemuri told her reasons why, and the kid had talked for a few minutes, and he doesn’t feel as irritated anymore. The kid was smart- his quirk wasn’t inherently powerful physically and he wouldn’t have been able to make even a dent in the heroics exam. Going through general education is a smart decision- he’ll make acquaintances there and be pushed harder to do better. If his quirk is as powerful as it sounds, the sports festival will definitely be interesting to watch.

And every year, he gets some stuck-up hero brats that usually get their asses KICKED at the sports festival. If Izuku Kayama is anything like his mother…

God, UA does NOT need another doe-eyed, happy go lucky student that flusters absolutely everyone they talk to. He’s not going to be able to handle teenage heartbreak and drama that comes when a pretty student breaks hearts.

…IF the kid gets into heroics, Nemuri is not going to help with his costume at all. The world doesn’t need another R-Rated Hero. And that all depends on how hard he’s willing to work, and if he can handle BEING a hero.

Well, he’s just going to have to wait and see. If Izuku Kayama truly does want to be a hero? Well, the world will easily fall at his feet and make it easy. It’s just like handing candy to a baby for him, when the revelation on who his mother is comes to light.

It all depends on how he reacts to it all. The boy didn’t talk enough for him to get a clear enough read, and he’s certainly not going to pry at him and have Nemuri lose her shit. He’s just going to have to wait til UA, and if things turn out in a way that’s unfortunate, that’s just how the cookie crumbles. The kid will have to work harder for his dream.

And if he does get in to UA, and he does get into the hero course…

He’s going to have to start carrying around his vodka flask again, because he’s definitely going to need it.

He’s glad Hizashi didn’t seem upset about it. If anything, he can see the trouble the two of them are going to cause, tormenting the UA staff.

He can’t help but think about how Shirakumo would react to the kid, even if he wishes his traitorous mind wouldn’t bring it up.

He’d like the kid, probably take him under his wing. God, he’d make sure the kid turned out just like Nemuri if he had his way.

Not a day doesn’t go by that he wishes Shirakumo could be here, and he knows Nemuri wishes it too.

And as he gets home and flips through an old photo album, fingers brushing against photos of his friends in high school, he can’t help but realize how old they really are. They’re not teens anymore; Nemuri is a mother and has been for years. He and Hizashi are married, and Shirakumo…

He never wants to go through anything like that again. He’s determined- Nemuri’s child will not follow the same fate. He’s not going to give anything to the child, other than criticism, but in a scenario, he’s not going to let him get hurt. He’s seen students of his before get injured, and a few even die in the field within a year. He’s been broken by the deaths of people he cares about many times before, but with this kid… it’s the start of him realizing that this is what forces his friend to move forward.

He doesn’t want to lose another friend by watching her will to live fade. This kid will be someone he keeps an eye on, nothing more.

He’s going to do a better job than he did with Shirakumo.

His phone pings, and after fishing it from his pocket, smiles slightly at the old picture Nemuri sent.

Shirakumo was right, she did end up keeping sushi like he thought she would. The cat was being held in the grip of the kid, eyes grumpy but not fighting the adoring grip of the child.

Nem: that cat put up with Izuku for YEARS, I still don’t know how he didn’t just book it to your place some night

Shouta: he was a good cat, if he stayed with you, you treated him well.

Tossing his phone aside, he looks down at the album one more time. They’re not kids anymore, sure, but he’s dedicated his life to teaching them. No matter what comes of the startling revelation he’d been slapped in the face with, he’s going to continue teaching.

And if he gets stuck with Midnight’s kid, he’s just going to have to live on vodka and class naps and hope that hound dog is ready for heartbroken kids to wail in his office for hours on end.

Chapter Text

Bakugo doesn’t get it.

Ever since he could remember, he’d been followed around by the small brat that called him an annoying nickname and wouldn’t leave him alone. He was bearable before their quirks manifested- but afterwards, when he’d received his explosions and Deku got pathetic little puffs of colored air, was when bakugo wanted nothing to do with him. Purple colored breath that doesn’t do anything- How lame of a quirk was that? His own is much better.

And Deku said he wanted to be a hero. What a joke.

The idiot was going to get himself killed, if he even tried. His mom’s quirk wasn’t powerful, and neither was his. He tried to tell him nicely ( it was nice! Nice to his standards, anyway) that it wasn’t going to happen, but when the fucking idiot wouldn’t give up and kept following after him because he wanted to bother him, he had to step up to the next level. Someone with a weak quirk like that would never be a better hero than him, or even be a good hero at all.

He was just so annoying, with his stupid muttering, and those stupid notes that would never be worth anything. His persistence was CHILDISH, and after trying to beat it into him, he’d hoped it worked.

He didn’t understand how Inko put up with him as long as she did.

So, you can imagine his surprise when MONTHS after graduation, his mom made him go over to Inko’s apartment only to find out deku wasn’t there, and hadn’t been there for a while.

“Oh, sorry, Katsuki. Izuku- well, he doesn’t live with me anymore.”

“What?”

“Oh, dear, I thought your mother told you, or at least Izuku, considering you’re friends. Guess not. I carried Izuku for someone who couldn’t, so he’s not my son. I just took care of him until his mother could.” She smiles, a smile that for the longest time Bakugo thought Izuku inherited.

“Oh. Thanks, sorry for bugging you.” The words feel strange on his tongue, heavy and weighted as confusion clouds his head.

What does she mean, Deku isn’t her kid? He looks-

Well. Now that he thinks about it, actually THINKS, there’s not an entirely strong resemblance. He’d always thought Izuku’s hair was black because of his dad. Maybe that’s right. He doesn’t know- he doesn’t know anything about Deku, like he thought. The stupid little brat that had clung to him like glue had kept everything about his true life secret, when he always told him everything he could about his quirk and how he just KNEW ways to make him better, As if he wasn’t the best already.

After a goodbye exchange, he was left to wander the sidewalk back to his house.

Who does that brat think he is? They were friends when they were kids, they GREW UP TOGETHER, and neither his mother nor that little bastard decided to tell him that Deku wasn’t related to the woman his mom told him to call auntie?

Does he think he’s better than him, better enough that he doesn’t need to share his true parentage?

The rare voice of reason pleads in his mind that maybe it’s because Izuku is ashamed of his parent, or that he thought it was personal enough that he didn’t want to share it. He didn’t have to share anything that was personal to him.

The normal part of his mind screams in rage, pulsing as a headache starts to form.

He’s angry. He’s angry at the lies Deku blatantly told, slipping off his tongue with no remorse. He’s mad at his mom for not telling him that. He’s angry that the little fucker managed to keep something so secretive away from him.

For years, ever since Deku got his quirk and wore a facemask at school, his eyes were the only part Bakugo could sense any emotions from.

He realizes with spite that Deku could’ve been smiling the entire time, acting, and he never would’ve known otherwise. Dammit.

Whatever. So what, if the bastard didn’t tell him about his true parents? He’s not going to be a hero. He’ll die if he takes the hero exams, and the world will be rid of one more nuisance it doesn’t need. Good Fucking riddance to the idiot who couldn’t speak without stammering, who coughed out purple clouds and had that stupid stubborn streak that kept coming back to taunt him.

The second he walks inside his house, his mother screams at him to go get groceries, so he’s back outside moments later storming to a shop.

He doesn’t have time for this. He needs to train.

“Okay, try it again. Make him walk over to me, and if you need to, you can take a break between making him walk, and just focus on holding the connection.”

Izuku sticks his tongue out, concentrating as his head starts to ache. A quick jerk of his hand, and one of the midnight boys, Takahashi, slowly starts to stand.

“Good. Now, make him walk to me.” His mother’s voice is quiet in the silence of their training room, and as his head starts to hurt, he tries to visualize it.

Takahashi isn’t in any pain, he’s asleep. His quirk isn’t going to hurt him, He can wake up at any time.

He starts to move his fingers, exhaling once more for good measure. The lavender puffs of air that he’s associated with comfort for as long as he’s had them drift from the air to the floor, and Takahashi starts to stumble towards Midnight, blissfully unaware of what he’s doing.

He stops moving with another jerk of Izuku’s hand, and Izuku lowers it slowly and gives up the control. Takahashi slumps to the floor, still asleep.

“We’ve determined that physical touch usually will wake someone up, if it’s with enough force, right?” She asks, walking towards her sidekick as Izuku nods.

With the whip she kept on her all times, she lightly thwacks her sidekick. The clouded feeling in Izuku’s head disappears, and Takahashi’s eyes snap open.

“That hurt, Mistress.”

“Oh, hush. You’re fine, I didn’t smack you enough for it to hurt.” She smiles wickedly, eyes narrowing as the sidekick’s gaze snaps to Izuku.

“Great job today, kid. I was awake one second and out the next.”

“Hm.”

Izuku knows he’s not working hard enough. That has to be the reason he’s having trouble with being able to use his quirk proficiently, and like he needs.

He can breathe far longer than he could years ago, after hours of breathing exercise and research. So knocking people out isn’t the issue- in a situation where he’s trying to apprehend the villain, how is he supposed to do that when he knocks out even the people who are trying to help, if he panics? He can’t spread different layers of sleep time with a single breath of air, and even then, the right person might not inhale it.

If he could control the dream state properly- like he’s been trying to do, god knows he is- he could snap people into waking up immediately. Terminate his connection to the sleeping human brain, and the person will wake up with a gasp. He’s been working, but there’s really not anywhere he can go and he can’t just practice on new people on the daily. His mom is immune to his quirk, and the rest of the midnight boys had grown resistant to the effects of his sleep-hold.

He’s never going to be a hero if he can’t find a solution to this, to work harder.

“Do you want to stop for the day?”

His mom walks to him, eyes searching as he quickly shakes his head.

“I don’t have time to slack off. Even if I’m only going in general education at first, I need to be at the top of my game. I.. I need to announce myself at the sports festival. I have people I need to impress. I- I have impressions to make. I can’t slack off.”

“This isn’t slacking off. It’s me, recognizing that you have a headache, and that you need to stop working on your quirk right now. You have plenty of time until you go to UA, okay? It’s good to want to succeed, darling, but if you hurt yourself in the process where are you gonna end up?”

Izuku sighs, shaky hand reaching up and rubbing his eyes. “Back where I started.”

“Exactly. How about you go out and get some air? MAYBE, we can practice more when you get back.”

 There’s no arguing with his mother when she gives him a suggestion. It’s more like a nice way of saying “Go” and he’s learned not to question it.

“Fine. I’ll be back later.”

Before he turns to exit the room, Nemuri pushes back his hair and smooches his forehead lightly.

“Gross.”

She gasps, playfully swatting at him as he ducks with a smile.

“I’ll be back later. Love you.”

She responds to the sentiment with a wide grin, and he walks out of the training room to the kitchen. There’s not much he really knows to do… He’s definitely not going anywhere near his old school, and he doesn’t want to go too far from their apartment. Being almost suffocated by a sludge villain makes him far more at ease to be close to home.

He could always visit Inko, right? Her apartment isn’t that close to his school- all he’d have to worry about is bakugo, but the odds of them running into each other on the sidewalk are slim. He’s not going to purposefully walk by his house anyway, not by a long shot. He likes this shirt, he’d rather not have it burned.

Yeah. He’ll go visit Inko. It might be lonely in that apartment now that he’s gone.

… That’s selfish, and he shakes the thought from his head in a matter of seconds.

Okay, to Inko’s it is.

He reaches for his facemask, only to hesitate.

He’s not going to be at school, and no one’s going to stop him in the streets, right?

His hand hesitates over it for a few more seconds, at the mask that he knows as safety, and makes up his mind.

He can’t rely on it forever. When he gets to UA, he’s not going to wear the mask. He has to be able to face the world without it, because soon enough, they’re going to know who he is. He’s a Kayama, his face is something people are going to critique. He has to be able to get over his fear, and let go of the object he feels is safety. Making a quick run to Inko’s and back is practice enough.

He walks out of the kitchen, determined footsteps echoing off the floor as he walks to the front door. This is a new chapter in his life- that’s the best thing he can think of to say about this.

For the first time in a long time, he steps outside without anything hiding his face and smiles.

“Izuku! Hi, sweetie!” Inko throws herself at him, hugging him tightly as he tries not to be suffocated.

“Hi. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads up that I was coming, but I made a spur of the moment decision and so.. tada!” He squirms free from the hug, and looks down at the woman he loves like his mother.

Yeah, looks down.

He’s grown in the last few weeks, shooting up like a beanpole. His mother just laughed, blaming her own height for it, but he doesn’t really feel like he can run to either for comfort anymore. The days of being able to look up at them as he runs into bedrooms at nights are over, and of course he’s sad over it, but.. that doesn’t matter anymore.

“How is Nemuri?” She asks, shutting the door behind the two of them. Izuku kicks his shoes off, following her into the living room he grew up playing in.

“She’s good. She’s already griping about how she’s going to hate dealing with the staff at UA this year… I’m not supposed to say anything but I doubt you’re going to go preach it anywhere, but All Might is supposed to be teaching this year. Mom already says she wants to die thinking about it, you know how dramatic she is.”

Inko nods. She knows EXACTLY how dramatic Nemuri is, because Izuku is JUST as dramatic, if not worse. Not that she’d tell him that, though. She has dozens of videos of him acting as dramatic as a child could be.

“You’re planning on going to UA too, right?”

Izuku nods, the worried little feeling he’d been hoping would go away coming back full force.

“I won’t pass the heroics exam, though. I’m not going to even take it- the best thing to do is just go through general studies and transfer into heroics later. A longer path, but hey, it’s good for me anyway.”

“Isn’t Katsuki going to UA, too? Does that mean you’ll be stuck in a class with him?”

Unfortunately, Inko’s question is something he’s been worrying about lately. Bakugo is obviously going to pass the exam with flying colors, and when Izuku himself transfers into heroics, it’s possible he’ll land in the same class.

“I don’t want to think about it. If that happens… I’m just going to have to put up with it, I guess.” He pulls his legs onto the couch, wrapping his arms around them. “Worst case scenario, I can just knock him out for a little bit. I just hope the teachers don’t hate me or anything if I do it.”

A hand slaps down onto the couch, and Inko sits straight in her fury.

“If they do, they’re going to have to deal with your mother and I. And it won’t be pretty.”

Izuku shivers. He doesn’t doubt it.

“I love you, Inko.”

“Oh, I love you too, sweetie.”

He leaves the apartment an hour later, hands in his pockets and eyes tired. The fatigue from earlier set in, and he can barely stop from yawning as he walks through the streets.

“Oi!”

Oh no.

He recognizes that voice.

“Don’t you even think of running from me, Deku!”

 In his experience, it’s best to do so and not head for the hills. He can’t run home anyway- his mom’s security would end up calling the police on bakugo and he doesn’t know how he’s explain that and get bakugo off the hook.

So, he stops walking and looks up from his feet. 

Bakugo’s stomping towards him, grocery bags in hands, before he momentarily pauses. Izuku can see the confusion flash over his face, and it hits him like a brick.

He’s not wearing the face mask. Bakugo hasn’t seen him without it for years- it must be a shocking sight, if he’s stopped his angry tirade to frown, puzzled.

“Look- uh, hi, Kacchan, but my mom is waiting for me and I kinda have to get home so bye-“

That chased the confusion from Bakugo’s face in a heartbeat. The snarl he saw while growing up makes its grand entrance, and he sighs. He’s gonna be here for a while.

“Mind telling me why I went to your house and Auntie said you’re not her kid?! You could’ve fucking TOLD me, DEKU.” 

Anger sparks, a feeling he hasn’t let fester for months. 

“No, I didn’t have to. And I still don’t. You don’t get to know everything about me, Kacchan.” He says, voice low as he sees the footsteps approach him. 

His shirt gets grabbed before he can think otherwise, and he startled to the fact that he’s not looking that far up to see bakugo. 

Bakugo notices it too. 

“What did you say to me, bastard? That’s what you are, right? Do you even have a dad? The one working abroad isn’t even related to you.” He taunts, smirk working it’s way on his face as his grip tightens.

“I know you’re trying to get me to spill but I’m not gonna say shit. You aren’t the boss of me and I don’t have to tell you anything, Katsuki.”

He stills, like he’d been slapped. 

“Now let me go. My mom needs me home.” 

His voice slides into the pleading tone he’s had to adapt in the years, because he’s been scared. He’s still scared, now, even if bakugo can’t do anything. There are people on the street, some sparing curious glances between the two. 

He doesn’t let go, and Izuku can see the anger starting to spark. 

Before he gets a black eye or a burn, he tries to run through every action he can think of to get away. 

The only one he knows will work immediately is one he could get in trouble with…

But it’s self defense. He just wants to get home.

So, he opens his mouth, and the lavender scent floods between the two. Bakugo collapses like a limp doll, and Izuku has to think quickly.

A quick flick of his arm, and Bakugo is standing straight again.

“Come on, let’s go.” He grabs the groceries Bakugo dropped, and starts to walk down the road he used to follow his ex friend down, years ago. 

Chapter Text

You know, it had been a normal day for Shinso. 

Not that he has a lot of them- usually, he’s just trying to keep a part-time job and not have to deal with the chaos of his parents. Not today, though. 

Today marked the 3 week period before the heroics exam. The exam that he desperately wants to pass, that he’s just crossing his fingers that some being out there will help him with.

And considering he was going to have a full-on breakdown at home and have to deal with his dads wanting to help even though they CAN’T, because no one can understand, he left the house to bike. 

Biking is the one thing he can genuinely say he’s good at. The one normal thing, anyway. Making friends? Definite no. Being likeable? Also no. Being able to ride a bike and get out of his house is his only escape because when he’s on a bike, he can forget what he’s been handed by the universe. It’s just him, the rush of wind, and his feet pushing the pedals.

He’s never been more thankful for his quick reflexes, too, because as he approaches a neighborhood, an idiot steps straight out in front of his path. He’s barely able to stop pedaling in time, and the person jumps back with a shriek.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re do-“

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!!”

The prettiest person he’s ever met looks at him, hands flailing as he stumbles back onto the sidewalk. 

Shinso can’t even form words. The boy, if he had to guess, is probably his age and dear lord. 

Black hair steals all the color from their surroundings, and blue eyes framed by dark lashes peer up into his own. It’s enough that he feels his face start to flush immediately.

Those stupid eyes look worried, and he finally manages to tears his gaze away before he ends up getting lost in them and screwing up his words.

Strangely, he gets the slightest feeling he’s seen this guy before. Déjà vu is a weird feeling, and he KNOWS he’s never met this person before. He’d definitely remember it. 

The boy blinks up at him, and shinso looks back at his worried face that screws into a grimace as he waits for his answer.

Oh. He has a beauty mark.

The boy’s eyes glance towards the ground, cheeks pink and shinso realizes he’s been STARING. His mind finally decides to stop being gay, and the words fly from his brain to his mouth before he can think otherwise.

“Just watch where you’re going.”

The boy’s gaze snaps back up to meet his, and he sheepishly laughs as his shoe scrapes across the concrete.

“I really am sorry, I’m just tired and I wasn’t looking where I was going, which I really need to do. I’m Kayama Izuku, again, I’m so sorry.”

“Shinso Hitoshi. Just be careful from now on, Don’t get yourself killed.”

His mind is racing a million miles a minute and he’s actually about to pass out if he doesn’t get away from here FAST.

Maybe he can talk to him, get his number? There’s a cat café a few minutes away, he needs to visit the cats again. He knows Maki would be happy to see him.

But what if Kayama doesn’t like cats? That could ruin everything. He doesn’t even know how to go about with this entire situation.

Reality hits him like a slap to the face, though, when he hears the word “quirk” from a passerby on the street.

This guy wouldn’t even be talking to him if he knew what his quirk was. No one does. There’s no use in thinking about what could happen, when life has made sure he’ll never find someone willing to listen or not fear him. He’s had so many reactions through the years, and they were all similar. He doesn’t want to go through that again. Not today.

Feet aching, he starts to push off, but the boy grabs the handles of his bike.

“Can I like,, get you a coffee considering I almost caused an accident and probably would’ve killed your bike?”

Shinso wants to say yes. He really does- Kayama seems nice, and he’s pretty BUT THAT’S NOT THE REASON, it’s NOT, but…

He’s not going to befriend someone, just to have them leave. He’s not going to put his feelings on the line again.

“No. My parents want me home.”

Kayama’s hopeful smile drops, but a smaller, resigned one appears a second later.

“Okay. Uh,-“

He starts to pedal away, and Kayama yells again for good measure.

“Maybe we can meet up another time, I don’t know! Uh… Be safe, Shinso!”

Shinso won’t look back, even if he wants to. This was just a roadside encounter, one that he’ll forget about in a few days. Nothing could’ve come from this anyway.

Nothing ever does.

Izuku watches the guy with great hair bike away, and he feels pretty proud of himself.

Not proud of the fact that he almost got hit by a bike. He’s not proud of that.

But, he talked to someone without his mask on and he didn’t screw up! That’s a good start.

He… can’t help but wonder if something was wrong though. If someone stepped in front of his bike, sure, he’d be irritated like Shinso was, but… something else was wrong. He seemed willing to talk to him for a few seconds, but then biked away without another thought.

Hopefully it wasn’t something he did. Coffee is never anything offensive, right?

He shakes his head, clearing the thoughts away as he continues to go home. There’s no way he’s going to be able to train tonight- not after having to exhaust his quirk while walking stupid bakugo back to his house.

The best thing to do is just go home, and sleep this off. He doesn’t have time to dwell on 5 minute interactions, not when he’s got a plan he has to follow with multiple steps that still make his head spin. He doesn’t have much longer to prepare, and the sports festival happens so soon in the year that he has to make every second count. It doesn’t MATTER that the sports festival isn’t the only shot into the hero course- he doesn’t know if he could uphold the almost perfect grades required for a transfer. That’s happened so few times in UA history that he doesn’t want to try and risk it.

He starts to run, huffing as one foot goes in front of the other.

He needs to make his mother proud. Coffee with dudes you almost give heart attacks will just have to wait until after he’s in the hero course.

It’s foolish to think that out of every passerby he runs into that they might want to go to U.A., but he can’t but help wondering about it anyway. 

Shinso Hitoshi, a name that matches the mystery around him as he biked off. 

Izuku wants to know more about him, but given the fact he wouldn’t even stick around, he’s not sure if that would’ve happened. He can’t do everything he wants. 

His mom is worried enough as is. 

His dreams take a dark turn as the day approaches. 

Normally, sleep hasn’t been an issue for him- despite his mother’s bloodline and quirk, sleep was as easy as it was for everyone else. Insomnia was new, and scary, if he’s being honest.

He hates dreams. Dreams trap you, and sometimes, you can’t make them end. Being trapped in your own head for an indefinite amount of time, with whatever the human mind creates, is terrifying. And lately...

He’s been having dreams about everything falling to pieces around him. His mother leaving him, the world rejecting him, everything he’s ever held dear turning to dust. Failing this exam, ruining his chances to go further and show the world what he’s made of. 

What would everyone think, if Midnight’s kid was an absolute failure? A kid, nothing like his mother, and never able to continue the illustrious path she’s set out for him? He can’t stay under wraps forever. His mother had already contacted the HPSC- his little announcement at the sports festival was approved. If he screws up, and doesn’t pass the general studies exam, they’re going to make midnight release the news anyway. 

Society would blame her. Of course they would.

She kept her kid a secret from the hero world- if he did well, they’d praise her for it and applaud her methods. 

If he failed, they’d blame his mother. 

So of course, the day of the General Exam, he’s running on 2 hours of sleep and just wants to cry.

“Izuku? Are you feeling okay?” 

His mother places her cup of coffee on the table, walking towards him with a palm extended to feel his forehead. 

“I’m fine.”

She stops, watching as he brushes past her to pull the milk out of the fridge.

“Oh. Okay, well, do you want me to make you breakfast before we leave, or-“

“I’m good.” 

He’s being snippy, he knows. But he’s tired, and he feels like he’s going to vomit, and if he tells his mother, she’ll want him to stay home and rest.

He can’t do that. Not when his future is literally hanging in the balance. He has to get a good score on this exam or everything he’s planned is gone.

“Don’t get snippy with me, Izuku. I know you’re worried and stressed, but I’m just trying to help.” 

His voice catches, throat burning as his hand holding the glass starts to shake.

He shouldn’t be acting like this and he knows it. He knows he shouldn’t, his mom is just trying to find out what’s wrong, but he’s about to cry and he doesn’t know what to really do. 

“I know, and I’m sorry.” 

Nemuri takes the glass, eyes sympathetic as she puts it on the counter.

“Izuku, dear, you have nothing to be worried about. You’re talented, and smart, and I know that you want this so much. You’re going to do it. You’ve been working so hard, and no amount of insomnia is going to change that. I’m so proud of you for working for this. It’s going to pay off.” She taps his nose with the tip of her finger, and Izuku starts to cry before he can think otherwise.

Nemuri pulls him into a hug instantly.

She’s seen some people raise their sons to not show any emotions at all, and others to show only anger. 

She raised Izuku to cry, like a HUMAN. That doesn’t mean seeing him break down doesn’t hurt. There’s not really anything she can say to make him feel better- reassuring him isn’t going to do anything. The only thing she can do is be here.

She lets him cry for as long as she can, and of course she feels bad for breaking the hug- but she doesn’t have a choice.

“I’ll get you a cloth to wipe your face, but try and eat something real quick, okay? You’ve got 15 mins until we leave.” 

His hands, hands that look similar to hers, wipe away tears as he goes back to trying to get a drink.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, unless you want me to puke it up in your car.” 

Nemuri throws her hair into a bun, before handing her son the wet cloth. 

They really don’t have much time, and as much as he needs to eat, she knows he’s right. And she doesn’t really want to clean vomit out of her car.

“Okay, dear. Just make sure you grab your bag, you’re going to need every pencil you have in there.” 

He nods, wiping his cheeks and hoping the red staining them fades soon.

He knows. He’s going to have to apply every bit of smarts he has, just to pass the written exam. After that… things are going to get even harder. 

He’ll be okay. He has to be. 

He won’t get a break after this. Taking this exam, and hopefully passing it, only opens up his opportunities further and things are going to change for good. There won’t be any more lazy weekends- he simply won’t have time. 

As he grabs his bag from the kitchen table, he tries to push away the vomit that wants to make a grand appearance.

His mom fixes her glasses, and that snaps him back into reality.

There’s going to be tons of kids there. Quite frankly… he’s not ready to show his face yet.

“Hold on! I just need to grab my facemask!” 

He runs through the apartment, dodging the pots and artwork as he slides into his bedroom, grabbing the mask off of his desk.

The nerves fade slightly, and he looks in a mirror.

This is the face of someone who’s going to be a hero, no matter what others say. His mom believes in him, and that’s all he needs. 

He just has to keep a level head in the exam, and he’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine.

He runs to the bathroom, mask getting tossed to the floor a second before he pukes his guts up into the toilet.

Shinso walks through the U.A. gate, hands shoved in his pockets. 

He’s nervous. He’s not going to lie and say he’s not. 

But, he just needs to remember the advice from his dads. (as useless as it was, considering the two completely different forms of it.)

He just has to do his best. Whatever happens, happens. There’s no getting around it.

He takes a quick breath, and starts to walk towards the stairs.

“Shinso? Is that you?” 

Oh, no. 

Fuck.

What are the odds? Is the universe tormenting him on PURPOSE?

He doesn’t want to turn around, because he knows exactly what will happen if he does. 

He does anyway.

Those blue eyes from weeks ago meet his, and his mind betrays him almost instantaneously.

“You remember me, right?!” 

He’s not going to answer that question. Who could forget someone they almost hit with a bike?

“Kayama, didn’t expect you to be here.” 

The boy flushes, and adjusts the face mask hiding his smile. 

“Uh, well, I decided I’d aim for general education here. It’s one of the top schools in the world, after all, and I need a good education.”

He wants to get away and leave this conversation. He doesn’t want to stick around this guy.

“I’m trying out for the hero course. I’ll see you around.” 

He doesn’t hear the rest of the words kayama says, and it’s for good reason. If he has to sit next to him during the written exam he very easily might end up either exploding from irritation at the universe or just die because his nerves and bitter resentment are at an all time peak.

It’s going to be fine. Absolutely fine.

Kayama runs, stopping beside him and from what he can guess, smiles. 

He has to do everything to hold back a groan and not bash his head against one of the walls. 

Chapter Text

Teaching… was a chore.

Nezu had never been a teacher- but he knew the pain and gripes of his staff. The alcoholic drink corner of the teacher’s lounge grew as the years passed.

Being a principal was far easier, he supposes- he’s not personally responsible for the growth of UA’s students, but he does make sure that they’re protected and that the school earns the income and respect it needs.

There are always going to be flaws in work, things you don’t enjoy. The hero commission hounding him for updates on the classes is one of them, along with the almost constant media pressure.

But, seeing the students of UA start off like little cygnets, walking through the doors with wide eyes and smiles, to watching them emerge from UA like swans, confident in their powers and willing to try and save the world. That’s why being a Principal is worth it.

He loves seeing the true potential of the students- he notices it in the first years, when he goes through the files. This year’s batch of first years has incredible potential- he’d noticed it upon watching the physical exams.

The written exams, though? That’s where the geniuses are found. And this year? The highest score, an almost PERFECT 98, had him as shocked as a genius could be.

What shocked him further, though, was the name of the boy, and his picture.

His eyes run over the picture, and he immediately recognizes those eyes.

Oh, these next few years are going to be absolutely magnificent.

Reaching for the PA system, he presses the button once.

“Kayama? Could you come to my office?”

The woman is at his doorway in minutes, purse slung over her shoulder and a nervous smile on her face. She knows exactly what this is about- he can see it in her eyes.

“Come sit down! Would you like some tea?”

Midnight declines, inching towards the seat with her hands tightly clenched. As she sits, Nezu hums, paws holding the folder.

“This student in general studies is very similar to you! I’m intrigued. His quirk, his looks, his name…”

“That’s because he’s my son. You know that already, though.” She cuts him off, fingers tight around her purse. This information has to hurt to bring up, especially after keeping it secret, like he can only assume.

He places the file down, looking back up at Midnight.

“That I do. If you don’t mind my inquisitive side, why didn’t he apply for heroics?”

It’s something he wonders about. The child’s quirk is like his mothers- it’s a powerful one, certainly, and although he knows that the kid wouldn’t have passed, he still wants to know.

Midnight snorts, hands relaxing. “Why do you think? He would’ve failed the exam anyway. He’s already got his plans in order. And NO, I didn’t tell him about the exam. That’s giving him an illogical boost.” She sniffs, and looks sheepish for a few moments.

“He overheard a few of my sidekicks gossiping about it because I informed them on what Izuku needed to be trained in.”

“I see.”

The woman across from him sighs, one hand brushing through her hair. “I know you have questions. I’ll answer the most obvious. He doesn’t want to take advantage of my hero status, or be revealed as my son yet. He’s got a plan for that, too. I need you to approve this, as well.” She pulls a folder from the purse, slamming down a form on the desk. “The Hero Commission wants to know that you’re aware that UA will receive a lot of attention once his parentage is revealed. The Sports Festival is where it’s going to be said- nothing special, or big, or anything. Just Yamada announcing that he’s my son in normal fashion.”

Nezu starts to scan through the fine print, reaching for his tea cup. “He sounds like a clever boy. I take it, then, that he conceals his face in some manner? It doesn’t take a genius to spot the similarities between the two of you.”

“He’s worn a facemask throughout his school years. I don’t know what he’s going to do here, that is his choice, not mine.”

Nezu stamps the bottom of the paper, sliding it back to the teacher.

“I look forward to having him at this school. I believe the boy has a plan for the sports festival that few students succeed at, am I right?”

Midnight takes the paper, giving the principal a smile. “You’re just going to have to wait, sir. He won’t disappoint, though.”

He sips his tea, smile growing as he glances down at the file again.

“I don’t doubt it.”

The letter arrives at his doorstep, and Hitoshi knows he’s failed. He barely got any points, anyway.

He heard a few of his old classmates murmuring in class- one had a brother accepted into the hero course, and he’d received a heavy envelope with a projector in it.

All he got was a paper thin letter, and a look of sympathy from one of his dads.

He takes the letter to his room, nausea and tears pulsing at the edges as he sits on the floor, fingers running over the envelope and loopy font. Fingers trembling, he rips through the seal, and pulls out the letter.

Shinso Hitoshi-

Thank you for applying to the heroics course! However, due to the points system, the 4 villain points were not enough. The 12 rescue points boosts you to 16, but sadly, that isn’t enough. Thank you for trying!

However, you also applied for General Studies, and I am proud to announce that with a 90%, you’ve been admitted into the course. Welcome to UA, and we hope your years here are beneficial.

Best of luck in this year,

Principal Nezu.

The stupid tears fall down his face before he can do anything, hitting his hands and the letter in one go. They’re hot, stinging the cuts on his hand as well as the ones in his soul.

He could’ve done better. His quirk, the stupid exam- it’s like the universe has doomed him to failing, and to suffer.

The letter RIPS, the paper screeching in its own way as the perfectly typed letters get ripped down the middle, pieces falling to the ground in silent succession.

Hitoshi looks down at the letter pieces with swimming eyes, and crawls onto his bed, pulling one of his pillows to his chest. The stupid tears he always try to hide break full force, coursing down his cheeks as he hides in his dark room.

He doesn’t want to give up. He’s not going to. Fuck what UA did, and screw their stupid exams. He’s going to be a hero, regardless of the consolation prize they’ve tossed at him. General Education is where he’s going to end up for now, but he’s going to change that. You can transfer into the hero course if you win the sports festival, right?

That’s what he’s going to do. No one is going to get in his way, and no one is going to stop him. He’s going to win and get into the hero course, and show those idiots how dangerous a mental quirk can be.

His plans for the future don't stop the pain of now, though. His tears don’t stop streaming, and his lip won’t stop trembling, but he’s alone, so it’s not like it matters.

The silent cry that wracks through his body leaves him gasping for air, snot and tears making a mess of his face. He’s never looked at how he cries. He can only assume it’s not a pretty sight.

His crying makes him tired again, for the first time in a while. There’s no fighting it, it’s better to try and sleep then to make it worse.

He doesn’t want to see his dads right now, either. If they see him cry, he’s never going to forgive himself. He doesn’t want sympathetic looks, or words of condolence. He just wants to be left alone.

He finally lets sleep win, pulling him away to a place where he doesn’t need to worry about his future.

He doesn’t see his door crack open, or the worried face of his dad peep in, only to deflate at the scattered pieces of paper on the floor.

He doesn’t see him turn to his other dad, tears stinging his eyes because they WANT their son to succeed, and to know he was crying and wouldn’t turn to them hurts.

The door is shut quietly, as not to disturb him, and he’s left to his dreams.

“Mom? I’m in my room if you need me!”

Not waiting for his mother’s reaction, Izuku shuts the door behind him, and clutches the letter to his chest.

HE DID IT. It may not seem like much, not now, but it’s everything to him. He’s going to go to UA. He made it. He’s closer to being a hero than he was before.

He hates to think about how simple it would’ve been just to have midnight recommend him, but he wants to do this on his own.

Holding the letter tightly, he scans through the words again.

Kayama Izuku-

Congratulations! With a 98%, you’ve scored the highest exam score in UA history! We welcome you to the general study with open arms, but the business course is open if you wish to transfer at any point!

Also- please know that you are more than willing to come to my office; I have the yearbooks from your mother’s years here on display.

Sincerely,

Principal Nezu.

He squeals, falling backward onto his bed. He did it.

Hand reaching for his phone, he pulls it up to his face and opens his messages.

He’d managed to weal Shinso’s number out of him, and so as a friend, he’s going to ask about how his heroics exam went.

The message comes through a few minutes later.

Shinso: I fucked up and failed spectacularly. I don’t want to talk about it.

Kayama: oh :( well, are you accepting the gen-ed offer?

Shinso: not like I have anything else better to choose

Shinso: as much as I don’t want to talk to you. How did yours go

Kayama: rude. And I got in! We’ll be classmates!!! Isn’t that great?

Shinso: No

Izuku snorts, dropping his phone on the bed. He needs to get out of the house, or he’s going to end up going crazy and possibly breaking a vase or two. And after seeing his mom’s reaction to the one present mic broke (he still can’t get over that PRESENT MIC WAS IN HIS HOUSE), he thinks it’s smart if he doesn’t break another one.

Maybe he should go to a library, or something. Reading is a good escape and could calm him down.

His phone buzzes before he can think of anything else, and he squints to read the message.

Shinso: I hate to ask but my parents are really getting on my nerves. Can I meet you somewhere for that coffee you promised when you were a fucking idiot

Kayama: ofc!! Just send me a location, k? and dw it’s fine, parents can get overwhelming.

Hitoshi regrets everything. He should’ve stayed at home and in his room. He TOLD himself not to get attached, to not make friends, because things won’t end well.

He doesn’t want to see his parents, though. And if he’d stayed in his room, he’d have to come out to feed the cats eventually, and they’d pull him into a chat that he wouldn’t be able to get away from. That’s the last thing he needs and it would be the one thing that would break him.

“Shinso!!”

The happy-go-lucky person who’d decided to stick to him throughout the entire written exam has arrived, facemask on as he waves his arm excitedly.

His heart speeds up, and he pushes away the stupid feeling away. He’ll admit it, Kayama is pretty, but that’s not what he’s here for. He doesn’t need a relationship. They’re not friends.

“Are you feeling any better?” He pulls out the seat, flopping down as he splays his hands on the table.

Right to the point, huh. Well- he doesn’t really know how to get around this, and as his hand goes up to his neck, he sighs.

“I failed the heroics exam, as I told you, because UA is biased and I hate it. Of course, only those with physical quirks would pass that exam! I’m stuck in stupid general education, because of that.”

He huffs, before looking up from the speckled table.

“Oh. Uh, I’m…I’m not saying you’re dumb for applying to Gen-Ed.”

Kayama’s eyes crinkle, and he laughs.

“I didn’t think you were implying that. What’s your quirk?”

It’s like cold water’s been poured over him, and the breath’s been stolen from his lungs.

Here goes the only person who’d been willing to talk to him, and as unwilling as he is to talk to him at times, he still likes knowing he has someone to talk to.

“You might as well forget the coffee, you’re going to leave as soon as I tell you.” He admits, tired hand running through his hair. Kayama leans forward, intrigue sparking in his eyes.

“Don’t just leave me hang-“

Kayama stops talking, blue eyes going white as Hitoshi miserably flicks the switch. When he lets go, he grits his teeth and waits for the words.

“Shinso, THAT IS SO COOL!”

His eyes snap up from the table, incredulously looking at the other teen.

“It’s a villain’s quirk, though.”

“No, it’s not.” Kayama says, voice growing quiet. “It all depends on how you use it.”

“That’s not what people think.” He spits, bitter resentment rising in his throat. “And how would you understand?”

Kayama blinks, eyes growing dark. It’s a look that Hitoshi finds unnerving.

“Because I don’t have a heroic quirk either.”

Hitoshi doesn’t even get the chance to speak- because Kayama looks uncomfortable, fingers gripping the edge of the table. He regrets ever bringing this up.

“Putting people to sleep seems simple enough, right? Not too bad, it would be helpful in a hospital scenario.”

The black hair falls in front of his eyes, and Kayama uses it as a means to hide from what he says next. “Being able to control them in sleep? Well, that’s what people would think as villainous.”

Hitoshi opens his mouth to speak, but Kayama is full on chatterbox and is not done.

“And you know what? I’m going to become a hero anyway. And so will you.”

Chapter Text

“…You mean that?”

Izuku watches as Shinso wipes at his eyes, and as his other hand tightens into a fist on the table.

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise, would I?”

Should he tell him his plan? I mean, it’s not much, and if anything, he’s probably got the same idea. Maybe he should tell him about his mom.

No- No, he’s only known Shinso for a little while. He wants to tell him, sure, but not now. Not yet.

“Kayama, why do you want to be a hero?”

Well. There will be know more internal mumbling, not right now. Not when he’s slapped with a question he doesn’t really know how to answer without revealing exactly who his mother is.

He only becomes aware that he’s been staring like a fish out of water a few seconds, and scrambles to come up with his answer as Shinso cocks an eyebrow.

“Good question. I just.. I want to be able to save people. There are so many more casualties than necessary, and I don’t think people really realize how USEFUL mental quirks are, or non-damaging physical ones. You can stop villain attacks by asking a question and that’s ALL. I can stop villain attacks by putting someone to sleep. The fact that UA didn’t accept you into the hero course is TERRIBLE, and I hate that that’s what happened, but we can make this work. You’re stuck with me, Shinso, and we’re going to SHOW them that “villainous” quirks are the most heroic.” He exclaims, hands slamming down on the table as Shinso looks at him with wide eyes.

“Jesus Christ, are you always so dramatic?”

Izuku flushes, cheeks starting to burn from under the mask as he sheepishly laughs. “I’m sorry, I’m just excited.”

Shinso rolls his eyes, but there’s the smallest hint of a genuine smile pulling at his lips and that’s enough for him.

“What’s your genius plan, mastermind? How are we going to get into the heroics course?”

“I won’t tell you unless you admit we’re friends.”

“No.”

“Damn, okay. Guess you’ll have to figure it out on your own.” He shrugs, and stands to his feet.  Shinso snorts, leaning back in his chair.

“Sit your ass down. We’re…” he looks disgusted for a moment, like the words genuinely hurt to say. “Friends.”

(If he’s actually panicking because he hasn’t HAD friends… Ever, well. No one knows that.)

“Glad that you admitted it. Anyway… First things first.” He gives the lilac-haired teen a look down, and tsks. “You’re going to have to work out and get a solid exercise plan. You don’t really think you’d be able to beat anyone with just your quirk, did you?”

Shinso stops looking at him, deciding the floor tiles are far more interesting.

“Oh my god, you did.” Izuku can’t let this slide. No way.

The only way they’re both going to get into the hero course is through HARD WORK, and scooting by on your quirk will not cut it. He’s been taught that by his mother and her sidekicks alike.

“Look, I just haven’t had the time, I…” Shinso groans, plopping his arms on the table and dropping his head on them.

“I just got adopted and I’m kinda struggling with things right now, like not really wanting to be adopted but not having much of a choice, so.. No, I don’t have a plan, and yes, I was gonna end up going just with my quirk.” He admits, voice muffled from his arms.

“Well, I’m glad we met up, because you’d fail the sports festival if you tried that.” Izuku chirps, and pulls out his phone.

“Here’s my workout and nutritional plan. We’re similar body-wise so I’d think we’ll have the same sort of training regimen, and I can send you everything I plan with. In fact, you can come over and we can train together, if you want.”

Shinso thinks of training with Kayama, and has never been more thankful that he had his head buried in his arms or his face would be as red as a tomato.

“Maybe.”

Izuku hums, flipping through his plans and sending the majority to Shinso.

“Heck, you can practice your brainwashing on me, if you want. My mom won’t mind, she’ll probably be working.”

His head jerks up, shocked eyes meeting the happy ones of his friend.

“Are you serious?”

Izuku raises his eyebrows, and if he wasn’t wearing a mask, he knows his resting bitch face would be in full effect.

“Why would I bring it up if I wasn’t?”

Shinso flusters, one hand going to the back of his neck again as the other waves around in the air.

“Because, I don’t know, I could literally make you do anything an-“

“So could I. But do you think I would?”

Shinso shuts up, mind going blank for a second.

He hasn’t known the boy sitting in front of him for long at all, but…

“No, I don’t think so.”

His hands slam against the table, and Izuku has to hold back a scream.

“Then why are you worrying about it? You need PRACTICE, and I’m offering it. I want you to be a hero too. We can’t show UA what we’re made of if you don’t accept the help. Even heroes need it.”

Shinso bites his lip, uncertain.

On one hand- he does need the practice. He can’t brainwash people, ever, or you know, he’d get arrested. He’s not close enough to his parents to even ask if they’d let him practice on them- He’d only gotten officially adopted 2 months ago, anyway, and he’s not really in the mood to just throw out all his feelings into the wind.

So, practicing with Kayama seems like the best option. In return, he supposes it’s only fair if he returns the offer.

“Fine. And you can use your quirk on me too, if you want, or something.” He resigns his pitiful fight against it, and Izuku cheers loud enough that a few of the people in the café give them concerned looks.

“Oh! Did you order our coffee?”

“Why would I have ordered us coffee? You didn’t send me anything.”

Izuku looks at his phone, brows furrowed.

“Huh, could’ve sworn I told you what coffee to get.”

Shinso pushes the chair back, ignoring the sound it makes as it slides across the tiles.

“Well, you didn’t, so spit it out.”

Hizashi looks up from his tea as the front door opens, and their son walks in.

He doesn’t look sad anymore, so he’s going to ignore the fact that he’s been gone for 2 hours.

“Have fun?”

Hitoshi glances up from his phone, nodding silently as he starts to walk to his room.

He’s been quiet. He can’t name a time where Hitoshi has willingly started a conversation with either of them.

He gets it. The kid didn’t want to be adopted, he wanted to prove his worth and fight through the foster system and make his own path to heroism, but that’s not how society works. He’d known and allowed himself to get adopted, if it only meant he’d have a better chance at succeeding at UA.

He doesn’t consider them as family. Hizashi knows that, and he knows Shouta knows it too.

Shouta promised that in time, Hitoshi would warm up. Hizashi could only cling to that promise with all the hope he had.

“Do you want any snacks or anything before Shouta and I go out?”

Another mute answer, as the teen vanishes into his room with the click of the door and the meow from a cat.

“Okay. Uh, Call us if you need anything!” He yells, and doesn’t get an answer, just like he expected every time he asked a question around the standoffish teen.

“How’s he holding up?”

Shouta walks out of the bedroom, hair tied up as one of their 4 cats clings to his shoulder. If it was a happier scenario, he’d laugh and scold his husband for even letting the cat on him in the first place.

This isn’t a happy scenario, though.

“I mean, he didn’t look too upset when he came back inside. Still didn’t talk to me, but he nodded. I guess that’s better than blatant ignorance, right?”

Shouta plucks the cat from his shoulder, letting run from his hands the second it’s on the ground. He doesn’t answer right away, but grabs Hizashi’s hand and the car keys before starting for the door.

“I know he’s angry about a lot of things, and that the world treated him terribly. I only hope he lets go of some of that anger, because I don’t want to imagine what happens if he loses his temper. Hopefully he’ll get used to us, and actually talk. As much as I hate to say it, we’re just going to have to wait.”

Hizashi sighs, tightening his grip on his husband’s hand as they walk out the house door.

“I just wish the little dude had been able to get into heroics. He’s powerful, and NEZU knows that. The exams.. They’re not fair. Just like how Kayama’s little listener didn’t even take a chance, because he knew he’d fail.”

Shouta shuts the door behind them, and they start walking towards the car.

“That’s just how the exams are. In this world- flashy, physical quirks are what earns money and fame. Hitoshi didn’t stand a chance, and neither did Kayama’s kid.” He unlocks the car, “And you’ll just have to hope that our kid does a good job at the sports festival. I’m not going to force teaching and training on him if he doesn’t want it, this is going to be all him.”

“And that’s why you’re going to be a great dad. You already are. Hitoshi just needs to realize that we’re not against him, not like the rest of the world.”

Shouta’s cheeks flush, and Hizashi smiles as they near the car.

It would take time, sure. But certainly, things would turn around.

And as Hitoshi received another stupid meme from his first friend, things already had.

Izuku snickers upon sending the last meme, and shoves his phone in his pocket as he nears the abandoned junkyard in is home city. They’d stayed at the café longer than he thought they did- the sun is starting to go down, and he’d rather be at home then be wandering the streets at night.

There’s not many people wandering around at this point, so he pulls the facemask off and shoves it in his pocket, right beside his phone.

He doesn’t hear the loud explosion before it happens- he only hears the maniacal laughter and feels the heat from it. Glass shatters, cans curl in on themselves, tires explode and nails and screws fly. He flies too- flies backwards into a pile of boxes, that is.

“Sorry about that, hot person!”

The loud voice SCREECHES, echoing in his ears as the high pitched ringing starts to fade.

Pink is all he can see- frazzled pink, going in every direction as a girl pulls darkened googles off of her dust-covered face.

“Man, this baby was going somewhere! Sorry it exploded right as you walked by. Must’ve hurt, huh? Let me see, maybe I can turn it into something defensive instead?”

Izuku blinks the last bit of shock away, before he stumbles to his feet and looks at the junkyard.

It was disorganized and messy at first, sure, but it looks like a bomb was dropped now.

“Oh, I didn’t even introduce myself! Hatsume’s the name, creating babies is the game!”

He’s not even fazed.

When your mother is Japan’s sex symbol, there’s not much that surprises you anymore.

“Kayama Izuku. Sorry I was in the aftermath of your explosion, I don’t know if you were actually aiming for something and I screwed it up-“

“You’re good! It wasn’t supposed to explode at all, but hey, what can you do? I can’t get into UA’s development studios yet, but when I do, THAT’S when the fun will start!” Her crosshair eyes fly across the junkyard, before narrowing in on him again.

“Oh, so you’re going to UA too? Let me guess, Support?”

Hatsume nods, eyes alight with excitement as her hands flail for a few moments, before clamping down on his shoulders.

“If you need anything in support, or if you want to help me make babies, just come to the studios. I’ll win old power loader over, I’ve got a master plan ready.”

“I’d love to make babies with you, Hatsume.” He solemnly agrees, and a dangerous spark lights in Hatsume’s eyes.

“EXCELLENT! Here, here’s my number. Are you in hero course or not? If you are, I can design your hero costume! I promise it won’t blow up, I pinky promise.”

Izuku pats her hand to gain her attention again, and her eyes finally focus on him.

“I’m not in the hero course,”

She visibly deflates, lips pouting for a moment.

“Yet. But I’m going to be, and with your help, we’ll show your babies all over the world.”

She yells, both fists flying into the air as she jumps happily.

“I like you, Kayama.” She points her gloved finger in his face, eyes serious. “We’re going to go far! I’ll get you on that hero course, and you’ll use the babies from Hatsume Industries while you’re at it!”

“I’ll gladly help you with any inventions you need. Hell, this night has been great! I think getting almost blown up has been the best thing to happen to me.”

Hatsume wipes her charred gloves on her pants, before holding one out to Izuku.

“Partners, Right? You ready to blow UA up, one step at a time?”

Izuku takes her hand in his own, shaking it with a determined smile.

“Ready. We’re gonna blow their socks off. Literally.”

Today really had been one of the best he’s ever had- he got his acceptance letter, he got Shinso to admit they were friends AND he’s coming over to his house to PRACTICE, (it took long enough to get the idiot to agree) and he’s made a friend in someone that’s going to bring around the start of a new era in support heroes.

Hatsume is someone he relates to, and understands. With their plans, there’s no way he can’t get to the top of the sports festival, and WIN.

“Hell yeah we are!”

He brushes away the little bit of dirt stuck to his face, and smiles.

He’s going to be a hero. It still hasn’t set it entirely, but with each thing that continues to happen, he can’t help but let the excitement get to him.

He’s going to make his mom proud. And he’s going to show the world that he and Shinso aren’t villainous people, and never will be.

Chapter Text

The week before UA flies by before Hitoshi can even blink. Before he knows it, he’s getting dragged by Kayama to his apartment, as the other boy hums while they run for the elevator.

The apartment is in a nice neighborhood- Hitoshi can’t help but feel safe here, surrounded by happy families that have perfect little lives.

He can’t help but feel jealous, either.

“I’m so glad you agreed to stay the night!! It’ll be great, tomorrow morning we can get up and get coffee and get to UA on time. We’re not hero students yet so I’m sure they’ll be a little lenient if we’re late.” He says, pushing the elevator button as the doors slide shut behind them. The.. Jazz? Music playing from within the elevator pushes away the nerves that Hitoshi doesn’t understand- why is he nervous?

“You sure your parents are okay with you staying over?”

Oh. It’s probably because he snuck out.

Yeah, that would be it, if the worry worm in his gut is any indicator.

“Oh, yeah. They were fine with it. Practically shoved me out the door.” He tightens his grip on his bag, face aching as he tries to actually smile.

Kayama seems to buy it, but before he can say anything, the elevator stops at his floor and the doors slide open. The hallway shines, and Hitoshi has never felt more uncomfortable as their footsteps echo across the walls.

“My mom is out working tonight, so she won’t be here. We can raid her snack cabinet, I’ll take the blame tomorrow.” He mumbles it under his breath, as he types the combo into the lock on the door. “This entire floor is ours, so don’t worry about waking any old coots of neighbors.”

The door is pushed open, and Kayama takes his hand and pulls him inside.

… The apartment looks simultaneously nothing and everything like he thought it would. There’s huge windows overlooking the city, as the lights glow down below. There’s a lot of houseplants too, and god, how much pottery do they own?

“Please, the one thing I’m asking is that you don’t break anything. My mom already cried over one like that a few weeks ago.”

He doesn’t have the slightest idea of who Kayama’s mother is, but if she’s anywhere near as dramatic as her kid, he will die instead of breaking one. That he swears.

“So, uh, I actually cleaned my room before you came and I’m sorry if it seems messy but I couldn’t organize all my notebooks as fast as I wanted so they’re kinda just shoved on my desk… But I have god knows how many movies and we can watch those, or play video games, or anything.” Kayama has the audacity to blush, and actually takes the mask off now considering they’re away from the views of people.

“Cause like, I know you don’t sleep much and I’d hate to fall asleep and leave you up all night because that’s a horrible thing to do as a person, not just a friend, and I’d just feel really shitt-“

“Kayama.”

The blue eyes meet his, and Hitoshi has to struggle to figure out what to say next.

God, why are cold insults and words of indifference much easier than trying to reassure someone?

“It’s fine. I’m tired anyway, I went on a longer bike ride today so I might just pass out and you’ll get lucky and not have to deal with me.”

Kayama sighs, hand reaching up and brushing his hair out of his eyes. Hitoshi’s stupid heart ships a beat, and he pushes down the feeling with a new resolve of stubbornness.

He’s not here as a potential significant other. Kayama thinks of them as FRIENDS, and that’s all they are. He’s not going to push it. It’s not his place, and he’s not going to assume things on the turn of a dime.

He should be thankful that someone like Kayama is even talking to him. Not many people will, not after considering his quirk, and he doesn’t want to think about if Kayama would if his quirk was any different. There’s no getting around that one of the main reasons they’re even friends is because their quirks are similar.

The door to Kayama’s room opens, and it’s surprisingly nothing like Hitoshi thought.

The wide, wall-length windows lead to a balcony, one that can be obscured from view with curtains that are barely pulled shut. Everything in here is either BLUE or black, and yeah, the desk is a disaster, but the bookshelf is incredibly organized and lavender is the most noticeable thing he can smell.

Lavender, a smell that helps with anxiety. A smell that he’s always been thankful for, but not one that he’d asked his adoptive parents about.

“Sorry if it’s strong… I don’t have issues falling asleep, but…” Kayama gets this look in his eyes, one that Hitoshi finds familiar and also new. “My dreams… They aren’t very nice. I think it’s a previously undiscovered aspect of my quirk, and lavender helps soothe the stress my dreams bring.”

“I like lavender, so it’s not a big deal.”

Kayama gives him a small smile, as Hitoshi drops his bag onto the floor.

“I’m just gonna run to the bathroom and change and brush my teeth real quick, you can put a movie on or something! Oh, wait, never mind and hold on. Before I run off, could you grab the air mattress I have in my closet?” Kayama points in the direction of a door plastered with a poster of Edgeshot, and then scurries away to the other door that must be the bathroom.

He stands still for a few moments, just really trying to take in the moment.

He almost hit Kayama with his bike, and now he’s in his apartment and is getting help to get in the hero course.

If you asked the Hitoshi of not even 6 months ago, he’d laugh and flip you off.

He doesn’t really understand how this happened, or if it’ll last, but for what it’s worth? He values Kayama’s attention and friendship far more than he should.

He’ll enjoy it, for however long it lasts.

Izuku spits the foam into the sink, and places his toothbrush in the holder before taking a deep breath. There is NO reason to panic. At all.

He can’t help it. He’s nervous.

It doesn’t matter that his mom left- she’d given him a wink before skipping off to a fellow hero’s house for the night, leaving him alone.

If he sets something on fire he’ll never forgive himself. It shouldn’t be possible, considering he doesn’t have a fire quirk, but what if he leaves something plugged in? Or he does something wrong with the microwave?

He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. Maybe it’s the fact that he just… doesn’t want to screw this up.

Shinso is the first person he’s genuinely wanted to call a friend, and he doesn’t want to warp the view of him he already has.

His life has been lonely, and he wants to have someone who understands and just genuinely wants to hang with him. Hatsume seemed genuine enough, but… it’s something with Shinso. Something he can’t put a word to.

Maybe he’s still trying to make up for the bike incident. He still feels terrible about it.

Blinking slightly as his eyes get used to the contacts being gone, he makes determined eye contact with himself in the mirror. He’s a Kayama. He doesn’t have time to be nervous over every little thing. His mother taught him better than that.

Determined, he shakes his head and pulls the bathroom door open. Shinso is sitting on the floor, finally hooking up the air mattress as it starts to inflate.

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to set it up! That’s my job, you’re the guest here!” He rushes over, hands on his hips as he glares down at his friend. Shinso blinks up at him, and shrugs.

“Well, I thought you were going through your 5 year skincare plan by the amount of things I kept hear dropping and drawers slamming so, I just decided to go for it.”

“I didn’t drop that many things.” He huffs, and turns to walk back to the closet.

Shinso makes a garbled noise that Izuku immediately turns to, worry already racing through his veins because something is wrong.

“Are you okay? Do you need a drink?” He falls to his knees, fingers reaching out to pry Shinso’s hands from his red face.

“M’ fine. Just coughed on my own spit.”

“Do you need me to run to the kitchen?”

“NO.” It comes out louder then both of them expected, and Shinso groans and falls back onto the newly-inflated mattress. The shrill shriek of the inflator is still echoing around the room, and as Izuku leans down to fix it, Shinso glances towards the open closet.

“That’s where the sheets are, right? I’ll go grab them.”

Izuku hums in acknowledgement, finishing the air mattress and walking towards his own bed, digging through the bedside drawers for the TV remotes. Shinso manages to reach the sheets far better than he’d been able to, and carries them over to the mattress.

“What movie do you wanna watch?” Izuku asks, finally finding the remote.

Shinso doesn’t look directly at him, and opts to push the sheets on the air mattress instead.

“Whatever you want, doesn’t matter to me.”

He then grabs his bag, and before Izuku can say anything else, he practically runs to the bathroom.

Oh well. He won’t judge- he just has to find a movie that Shinso will like, so they can watch it and talk and maybe he’ll explain exactly who his mother is.

Hitoshi is going to die.

There’s no way around it. He’s actually going to die, in this apartment, in Kayama’s pretty bathroom that he can’t even think straight in.

The cold atmosphere is enough to soothe his frazzled nerves a little, but everything in his body is running full speed like a runaway train and he doesn’t know what to do. There’s no way he’s going to get an ounce of sleep tonight.

Why did his friend have to wear those stupid sweatpants?

Juicy being PRINTED across Kayama’s ass is doing NOTHING for the feelings he’s trying to push back into being platonic, and he is about to cry.

Feelings are confusing and overrated, and he DOESN’T want these feelings.

Of course, his stupid heart would attach itself to the one other human who’s ever showed any interest in wanting to know him as a person. There’s no way he can get out of this, and there’s certainly no way he’s going to let it ruin the rest of this little sleepover.

Kayama worked his tail off planning this, and planning everything he can hold dear right now, when it comes to his training exercises to just being there. He can’t ruin this, and he won’t.

Get yourself together, Hitoshi!

He splashes water on his face once, the cold chill forcing away the red burn of the blush.

It’s not doing a lot, and the blush is certainly still noticeable, but it looks more like he coughed on a potato chip lodged in his throat then had an existential crisis in his friend’s bathroom.

Kayama is going to be worried about him if he doesn’t come out soon, and he still doesn’t know how he’s going to spend the rest of the night. Maybe the best thing is just not to look at his friend at all?

No, that wouldn’t work, because knowing Kayama, he’d overreact and think he did something oh so terribly tragic, and he wouldn’t rest until he made SURE that nothing he did insulted or hurt him in any way.

He’s just going to have to smell the roses and deal with this problem that his stupid little heart got him into, head on.

He opens the door sharply, hand twisting the doorknob.

The lights in the room have been lowered, and bluish fairy lights hang on the wall and illuminate equally blue eyes belonging to his friend, who’s flicking through the movie titles on the screen in rapid succession.

“Do you wanna sleep in my bed?” Is the first thing he asks, and Hitoshi almost turns around and heads right back into that bathroom.

Kayama seems to realize the weight of his words, though, and through a few stammers and flailing hands, the point gets made clear that He was willing to sleep on the mattress if Hitoshi wanted.

“No, it’s your bed. I’ll sleep on the mattress.”

“FOR THE LAST TIME, you’re my GUEST, and I’ll feel TERRIBLE if I kick you to practically the floor because of it.”

Hitoshi doesn’t want to fight any longer.

“Kayama?”

The dark-haired boy looks away from the TV for a moment, eyes inquisitive.

“Ye-“

Bingo. The pretty eyes fade to white, and Hitoshi ignores the uneasy feeling he gets from controlling the most powerful of things: the human mind.

“You’re going to sleep on that bed, and let me crash on the air mattress, okay?”

Kayama nods, and Hitoshi releases his hold on his mind a second later.

“I’ll never get over how cool that is.” He says, eyes wide as he turns to look at his cluttered desk. He seems to think otherwise, and turns back to the TV.

“Is this movie okay?"

Izuku wakes to the frantic beeping of something.

With eyes blurred because of sleep and numb hands, he pats around for his phone and lifts it to his face.

3:52. And no alarm or messages.

The beeping continues, and as he lifts his head tiredly, he glances around his dark room.

Shinso is actually asleep. He knows that for a fact- after years of living and working with his mother’s quirk and his own, which both function with sleep, he knows that Shinso is out cold.

The stupid pinging keeps GOING and he’s getting very irritated. Hand reaching out, he struggles to find his glasses on his nightstand and continues to squint around the room.

The guilty object is Shinso’s phone, plugged into the other side of the room. The dim screen flashes every other few seconds, and Izuku groans.

Maybe rolling over to face the other side and pulling his pillow over his ears will work. There’s no harm in trying it, right?

A few minutes later, and Izuku can confirm that it doesn’t help. He wants his sleep, and if that stupid phone keeps going off, then he’s going to be a disaster when they arrive at UA tomorrow and that CAN’T happen. He has to make a good impression. Eraserhead and Present Mic already know about him, but there’s so many more teachers at UA that he has to impress, or he’ll never be at the same level of his mom.

That fucking phone won’t stop going off, and with it, Izuku’s covers get thrown aside as his feet touch the cool flooring of his room.

He’d feel bad about invading his friend’s privacy if he actually cared for anything other than his sleep right now.

Tiptoeing to the wall, he sits down carefully and picks up the phone.

Oh, god.

No password? Hm, interesting. But what’s really interesting is the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of messages from who he can only assume are shinso’s parents.

…So he snuck out, huh?

He doesn’t know whether to be flattered that Shinso snuck out to spend time with him, or hit him with a pillow right now for worrying his parents. Idiot.

He’s tired, sure, but he can’t leave Shinso’s parents worrying. So, he types a simple message out, turns the ringer off, and walks back to bed. Sure, he’ll have to talk to Shinso about it in the morning, but right now, he’s going back to sleep.

“Shouta! Shouta, he’s okay.” Hizashi practically screams, and rereads through the message again.

Hitoshi: Hi!! This is one of Shinso’s friends; he’s at my house for the night. He told me he got permission from you but I guess not :/ sorry! But don’t worry, we’ll see you both at UA in the morning :D sorry again!

Shouta practically runs into the kitchen, snatching the phone and reading the message for himself. He’d feared that Hitoshi would do something drastic, and finding their son’s bed empty was the start of panicked reactions from the two of them.

“I wonder who his friend is…” Hizashi mutters, tired fingers tapping against the counter. Shouta groans, dropping the phone and burying his head in his arms.

“I don’t want to know right now. He’s a problem child already.”

Chapter Text

The morning rises before Hitoshi wants it to. The light shines from under the curtains, and as the sun rises, so does his friend.

Kayama rises like the sun, eyes bright and voice loud as he scrambles out of his bed, talking an excited storm as he flutters around his room like a butterfly, each word more excited than the last.

Hitoshi is the cloud that covers the sun, as he sits up with a groan, and blinks blearily around the room. Kayama continues to shine, smile bright as he scrambles to make his bed. The sun can shine through clouds, and Kayama’s joy breaks through the cloud of tired that hovers over Hitoshi.

“It’s our first day at UA! Aren’t you excited?!”

“Sure.”

He’s actually regretting his choice to stay over, in a way. He doesn’t regret watching the stupid movies Kayama managed to find in the depths of the internet, or the raiding of the snack cabinet that ended up with him in hiccups for 20 minutes.

He regrets sneaking out, without his parent’s permission. He’s going to get scolded, chewed out, who knows what else. He honestly doesn’t know how he snuck out in the first place. They’re PRO HEROES, how did he manage to get through his window without waking them or triggering an alarm? He’s got no clue. All he knows is that he’s going to get chewed out for HOURS after school.

He knows that they’re heroes, but he’s a teenager. What are they going to do, lock him in his room? Not like he hasn’t experienced that before. The only thing he can imagine is that they’ll either confine him to his room or take away his bike? And… He doesn’t really think they’d do that.

Hm. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

“Come on, come on!! We don’t have much time to get ready, and I know I said that we could risk being late yesterday but I don’t want to risk it.” Kayama stumbles across the floor to his closet, pulling his UA uniform from the hanger and laying it across his newly made bed. Everything about him screams routine, that he’s done this exact thing day in and day out for years.

Maybe he has. He doesn’t know otherwise, but Kayama disappears into his bathroom with a click, as the door locks behind him.

He’s left to sit alone in the room, on his air mattress. What does Kayama expect him to do? He can’t do anything right now and he’s definitely not going to UA filthy. Not like his one father does, according to the griping of the other.

He may not talk to them, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t listen. For years, as he bounced from foster home to the other because of the untimely accident of his birth parents, he learned that it was easiest not to talk to figures of authority. They wouldn’t like what he had to say, or they feared what he’d say. It’s easier just to stay silent.

And yeah, he knows that his parents now aren’t FOSTER parents, that he’s stuck with them for good, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t fear repercussion from talking anyway.

Talking to adults in general... scares him. And he hates that that’s what he thinks, when he knows that self defense is as easy as asking a question, but it does.

And that’s just how society works, and how society has treated him.

Damn. He really ruined his mood for the morning, huh?

Kayama pops out of the bathroom a second later, though, all smiles and hair plastered down to his forehead.

It doesn’t matter if he’s scared of adults, or if they’re scared of him. He has someone who doesn’t care what his quirk is, and someone he can actually talk to without feeling angry to. Kayama KNOWS what people think of mental quirks, and how society as a whole views them.

Villain’s quirk, made for evil, and a menace to society.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter what other people think, as long as they reach their goal.

They’re going to be HEROES. And nothing is going to get in the way of that.

Izuku pushes down the nerves, and stares up at the tall building of his dreams. The building that his mother told him about, eyes wide as she described how she taught and how big it was inside, and how she couldn’t wait to teach him someday.

He can’t believe he’s right outside of the gate. He really can’t believe it.

He’s about to cry, honestly.

“Are you just going to stare, or are we actually going to get to class on time?”

Shinso rests a gangly arm on his shoulder, and Izuku blinks.

He’s forgotten how tall he’s gotten. He doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror sometimes, or is even able to see himself if they’re not wall-length. His mother keeps teasing him about it, about how he’s going to look like a lamppost, but he doesn’t really feel it set in until he looks at Shinso and finds he doesn’t have far to look up to, at all.

That, and the fact that a lot of people walking by look short.

He really doesn’t know how to feel about it, but he doesn’t have TIME to dwell on things like that.

Time…

TIME. They’re going to be LATE.

“Let’s fucking go!” He grabs the fabric of Shinso’s uniform, fingers brushing against the rough fabric as his feet finally break free from the invisible glue, and he starts to pull him forward as they cross the gate.

He’s at UA. He’s a UA student! And if he’s late for class, his mother will never forgive him.

“Language!” Some equally tall student yells, but neither boy has the time to look back or respond. They’re going to be late, and 1-C is further down the hall than the other classes, and GOD, this place is nothing like he’d thought it be and he really hopes he doesn’t end up getting them both lost.

It’s a tight fit, trying to squeeze through all the chatting students who don’t seem to have a care in the world. The slight differences in their uniforms deems their position in this school.

They’re the heroics students, and they’re acting without a care in the world like the rest of the school belongs to them.

There are some benefits to being tall, he guesses, because he can peek over the top of students. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to get through, though, and he’s about to open his mouth to say something polite when Shinso beats him to it.

“Hey, you’re clogging up the hallways. Believe it or not, this school doesn’t completely revolve around you.” His voice drones, and he glares down at the heads of students who turn to look at him in shock.

Izuku swats his shoulder, but Shinso simply curls his lip, looks at the rest of the students, and speaks again.

“So move it, or I’ll make you.”

The students scatter, and Shinso drags Izuku along despite his quick yelp of protest.

“Are you TRYING to give us a terrible reputation?”

“I’m trying to get us to class on time, Kayama. And besides,” They approach the large door of 1-C, and Shinso begrudgingly walks through the doorway. “If you know what you want your future to hold, you can’t worry about what other people think.”

The eyes of students fly to them in moments, and Izuku wants to hide.

Nothing compares to the noise Present Mic makes though, after he looks up from his desk.

Hizashi’s been through some shit in his life.

Finding his child missing is what he’s sure gave him a few gray hairs- sure, the message that came in the middle of the night soothed his nerves, but that didn’t mean that he was suddenly okay. His anxiety still kept him up the rest of the night, but it was coupled with curiosity.

Who was Hitoshi’s friend? Why didn’t he tell them? Would he get to meet them?

All those questions were answered when his son walked through the classroom door, paired with another kid that he recognizes IMMEDIATELY.

Oh ho ho.

He watches as the two walk in, and Hitoshi grimaces upon seeing him.

It’s just like him and Shouta, back in their UA years.

Shouta is going to die, when he finds out. Kayama’s little listener has stuck himself to Hitoshi like glue, and the trouble these two are going to get into… If they can find a third troublemaker, they’ll be the 2^nd generation of the UA dumbigos.

“Shinso, Kayama, mind stepping out for a minute? Everyone, just sit tight, I’ll take you to orientation in a minute. It can’t start without me, after all.”

Kayama’s little listener has the nerve to look worried, brows furrowed as his fingers play with the edge of his uniform. Hitoshi just sniffs, and the two follow him throughout the doors and towards the quiet of the teacher’s lounge.

Nezu will understand if he’s a little late. Hizashi may be a teacher, but he’s a parent first.

“You could’ve told me you were going to a friend’s house, kid. You didn’t need to sneak out.” He starts, and Hitoshi shuffles his foot as his hand reaches up to his neck. He doesn't answer. It's exactly what Hizashi expects.

“As for YOU,” He yells, and turns to his friend's kid. Little Kayama eeps, eyes going wide before Hizashi can speak his piece.

“Thank you for the message. I think I would’ve torn the city down if you hadn’t sent it.”

Kayama relaxes, tense shoulders drooping. And then, he seems to connect the dots.

“Wait, what do you mean, you’d tear the city down? Do you two know each other?” He asks, eyes switching between the two as his finger starts to point.

“You didn’t tell him? Holy hell, kid. Even Shouta would’ve, at this point.”

Little Kayama turns to Hitoshi, fury sparking in his blue eyes as he points a finger to his chest.

“What is he talking about, Shinso?”

His kid groans, and buries his head in his hands.

“He’s one of my dads. He’s married to Eraserhead.” 

It's the first time he's heard Hitoshi speak in a while.

Little Kayama practically short circuits.

“WHAT?!”

“Now, now, before you argue, we have to go to orientation. You’ll have to work this out later.” He says, and smiles at the unbridled FURY that sparks in the blue eyes that look exactly like his dear friend’s.

Little Kayama must not have told Hitoshi who his mom was, either.

He should let the two of them talk it through now, get their emotions out, so they don’t try and kill each other for the rest of the day.

There’s really no fun in that, though. And what kind of drama queen would he be if he doesn’t bring a story to his husband?

Lunch is going to be fun for all of them.

The rest of the school day went wonderfully. Shinso kept giving him apologetic glances, and Izuku did nothing but throw balled-up notes at him that his friend wouldn’t read.

Lunch finally arrives, and with it, the pent up emotions that he’s had bottled up since Present Mic’s news break free.

“Don’t even think about scurrying off to your parents for lunch.” He hisses, and Shinso groans, banging his head against the desk. Being the last two in the classroom gave them the opportunity to talk freely, if for a moment, before they have to go to lunch.

“Why didn’t you tell them? Or me? I could care less if you hadn’t told me until we got to know each other better, but why didn’t you tell your parents? They worry about you.” His voice softens, and Shinso doesn’t lift his head from the desk.

“I just didn’t. I don’t talk to them, okay? Like. At all. I just don’t talk to adults very much, and the point is, that I didn’t want to talk to them about anything.” He huffs, fingers gripping the edge of the desk. “I’ll talk to them from now on. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my parents were pro heroes.”

Well, now Izuku feels guilty.

And… if he doesn’t tell Shinso now, Present Mic will, and he’ll tell EVERYONE at the sports festival.

And how will Shinso feel if he learns it then, instead of now?

“Well…” He sits down in the desk in front of Shinso’s, turning around and facing him, placing his arms on the desk. “I haven’t been entirely truthful about my mama, either. She’s… not your run of the mill woman.”

Shinso cocks an eyebrow, and Izuku takes off his face mask with a flustered sigh.

“My mom is midnight. Your parents’ best friend… you know, Japan’s sex symbol. The one who has never revealed she has a kid, and hopefully will stay that way, until the sports festival.”

Izuku waits with bated breath, as Shinso studies his face for a few moments. Izuku can’t help but want to put his mask back on immediately.

“So THAT’S why I thought you were familiar when I almost hit you with my bike.”

Izuku cocks an eyebrow, as Shinso sits up straight and shakes his head. 

"Yeah, that's why." 

He stands to his feet a moment later, grabbing his book to his chest as Izuku blinks up at him for a few more seconds.

He should've reacted differently. He can't just...accept it like that, right? This is a world-wrecking spectacle, does Shinso just... Not care about everything revolving around his mom?

... He likes that, to not have to worry about Shinso's reaction. Or to care if he judges- which he doesn't.

"Come on, let's go to lunch. Unless you WANT me to march down to Midnight's classroom and tell her that you're being stupid and refusing to go get lunch? If she's anything like my parents have told me, and what I've seen, she's not going to be very happy about that." 

Izuku hops from his seat, grabbing his backpack as his friend waits with a coy little smile on his face. It's a look he hasn't really seen before- and one that he'd like to continue seeing. 

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Just..." He grabs onto Shinso's sleeve, gaze dropping to the floor. "Don't tell anyone yet, okay?"

Warm hands move to rest on his shoulders, and before he can look up or speak further, his friend speaks before him yet again. 

"I'd never betray your trust like that. You're my friend, Kayama. It's your life and your mother's, and if it's a secret, it's like that for a reason." 

Stupid tears well up in his eyes before he can do anything about it.

"But I feel bad, now, because your dad told me. And maybe you wanted to keep that a secret too. And now you don't have that anymore."

Shinso scoffs, elbowing him in the side as he starts to drag him towards the door. "Don't stress about it, Kayama, or I'll slap you. I was going to tell you, anyway."

Izuku can't help but still feel bad, but the stupid smile Shinso gives him in return chases away the majority of the icky feelings. 

Yeah, his biggest secret's been revealed to his one and best friend.

And he finds he's okay with that.

"Excuse me, WHAT?"

"Yep! Little Kayama has attached himself to our boy. I doubt either one will go anywhere without the other now." Hizashi says, smile wide as he takes a sip of his drink. Shouta blinks incredulously, and the shock seems to finally buzz off. 

"No. No, this cannot happen. No."

"No changing it now! Hitoshi went over for a sleepover last night." He raises his eyebrows, and takes another sip of his drink. "If I were you, I'd get ready to have Nemuri as a family member." 

Shouta starts to head for the drink corner of the lounge, shaking hand pulling out a bottle of wine. 

"No. I'm not ready for this."

Chapter Text

“Before you kill me, listen, I didn’t really have a choice.”

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow at Kayama’s words, as the two of them walk through the organized chaos called the cafeteria.

Apparently, they’re sitting with a girl Kayama met. In his words, “She blew me away. Like, literally.” 

He can’t help but grimace at the thought. If she’s anything like Kayama… he might actually just drop dead. Kayama is the most dramatic person he’s had the misfortune of meeting, and if this mystery girl is anything like him, he’s just going to die. Simple as that.

“I think she’ll be a great help, and in the sports festival, I can get her to team up with us and we should definitely get into the top 10. Just…” Kayama grimaces, and fidgets with the edges of his sleeve. “Just be prepared. She’s a little… Loud, I guess.”

Loud is a little bit of an understatement, considering Hitoshi feels like his eardrums are going to rupture at the sound of the loud voice that screams across the cafeteria. 

“KAYAMA! There you are!! Hurry up, we don’t have all lunch for you to get over here!”

Pretty much everyone in the cafeteria turns to look at them, eyes wide and whispers quiet. Kayama flushes, hands tightening around his backpack as he hurries over to the table. Hitoshi has no choice but to follow, and he hopes the glare he sends towards the most curious onlookers does the trick.

As they approach the table, the excited shrieks of the girl taper off into excited whispers as she frantically writes things down on a napkin.

“Okay, so Shinso, this is Hatsume. Hatsume, Shinso.” Kayama introduces him with jazz hands, and Hitoshi may seem rude, but until he has reason to, he’ll be nice.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He holds a hand out, and Hatsume shakes it with a grip that has him wincing.

“Right back atcha! Now sit, sit! I have so many things to talk to you about!!” She gestures to the seats, pencil-stained hands flailing as Kayama quickly follows her wishes. Hitoshi slumps down into the one beside him, and Hatsume smiles a grin that is nothing short of insane.

Yeah. She’s like Kayama. Time for him to die. 

“Now, Kayama told me a little about your quirk over text. I’m a support student- what you dream, I can probably make reality. Now, I know you two are just in general studies right now, but-“ She pulls out a notebook, and despite her gritty appearance, the notebook is in great condition. If it holds all her designs and ideas, then yeah, that makes sense. He saw the mess of notebooks in Kayama’s room last night, and while he didn’t look directly in them because that’s a massive invasion of privacy and he’d NEVER do that, they’d looked organized and neat.

“You want to get into Heroics, obviously. But, the issue is that both heroics classes have their amount of students already. The only way you’ll get in is to place top 3 in the sports festival, or have incredibly high grades. For the latter, they’ll probably transfer the students with the lowest GPA out, but that will take way longer than you need. You’ll miss out on some of the most important heroics lessons there are. The easiest, and quickest option is through the sports festival.”  

“Yeah, we know that. It’s a fact most gen-ed students know from the second they get their letters, or walk through the doors. “Oh, sorry kiddo, try winning the sports festival and we’ll see about heroics!” Hitoshi says, pitching his voice in imitation. Kayama looks at him with disinterest, before elbowing him in the side.

“No need to be rude. Hatsume is offering to help.” Kayama scolds, and turns back to her. “Sorry. He has the personality of a soaked cat. Continue.”

“As I was saying. The sports festival is your best shot, and I’m offering to help you two out in whatever the events are this year. Teaming up is our best option, because both of your quirks may not seem like much compared to the powerhouses in the other departments, but it’ll be a huge help. If we’re somewhere enclosed, for example.” Hatsume starts to scribble, and turns the paper towards the two of them.

“If we’re enclosed anywhere, Kayama, you can breathe and knock a lot of people straight out of the competition. Shinso, you can ask questions to other competitors if they’re unaware of your quirk. I can combat your sleep breath with filtering masks, Kayama, and that would give us a huge boost overall. Shinso, you'd just have to use your shirt as a mask the best you can because you wouldn't be allowed to wear one, but here's the scribble of it."

It’s a messy doodle of a gas mask, but the words scribbled are legible. 

He has to admit, even without seeing the rest of her things, she’s mad talented and probably could win the festival if she wanted. 

“The thing is, we don’t know what the festival is going to start with. It could be diving, or some swimming contest, and what good is my breath gonna do with that?”

“Keep you alive, maybe?”

Kayama gives him a tired look, and Hitoshi smirks. 

“We’ll just adapt if it comes to it! I’ll have plenty of babies ready for us.” Hatsume exclaims, and her words garner a few more shocked and concerned glances from around the cafeteria. 

“You two are going to be hero students if I have to sell my soul to the devil for it. The opportunities I have here because of your quirks… It’s a shame they didn’t put you both in heroics from the beginning. Especially you, Shinso! I can’t believe they’d let your quirk waste away in general studies. Fools.” She mutters, and goes back to frantic scribbling.

That makes more than just Kayama who doesn’t believe his quirk is evil or villainous. He really doesn’t understand her reasoning, or why these two are just WILLINGLY talking to him, but… he’ll take it. Friends… are new, and something that feels weird to say and to even interact with, but he’s going to try.

No way in hell is he just going to pretend that people can push him around because he’s in general studies, though.They won’t, unless they want to meet him off of UA grounds and fight. He’s not going to be pushed around for having a dream that he KNOWS is attainable, that people have no right to step on. 

And he’s not making any more friends. He’s going to get into the heroics course, and leaving people behind that he’s come to care about isn’t something he’s willing to go through. Not after being on the receiving side of it, years ago. 

He has Kayama, who he hopes will stay, and this new mess that so far seems to be chaos incarnate. What else could he need?

He only hopes his parents don’t butt in and try to figure anything out of everything. It’s bad enough that the children of pro heroes sought each other out on complete accident and now are friends.

Hell, just get the todoroki kid, and they’re all set, huh?

The school day ends slower than it began, and Nemuri sighs as she finishes a lesson plan and gets ready to close her computer. 

Today, as all first days are, was long and chaotic. She can’t blame the kids though- the little dears are just excited to start their year, and their future. Their excitement is cute to watch, because every year the students step in doe-eyed and smiling, and it only makes her motherly instincts kick in because she KNOWS that they’re not going to look like that for much longer. For her heroics students, the dears are going to see death, and blood, and be traumatized beyond what they can believe. That’s the world of heroics.

And her other kids? The Gen-Ed students, the business students… They don’t go through what the heroic classes do. They have to live in a world where their quirks just aren’t enough for a hero, or where they just want another type of life for that. 

The world isn’t kind, though. As an art teacher, she’s studied pre-quirk art, and literature, and things that the world now has never experienced. Life wasn’t perfect back then, far from it,  but it was peaceful, she should say. You didn’t have to worry about death by quirk. There were laws for society, but the one of the only differences was between the ones with money and those who worked hard but barely scraped by. 

It wasn’t like now, where a child’s gift at the age of 4 could level cities or kill thousands. And this, this is the life she sometimes wishes existed, because quirk prejudice is as strong as ever.

Some angels get handed the gift of no quirk- with no genetic mutation, they are the last dying species and examples of a life that no longer exists. Quirkless people should be praised, protected, and seen for the work of art they are. They aren’t missing something “normal”, centuries ago, they WERE normal. 

They don’t have the genetic mutation that can cause chronic pain for their entire lives. They don’t have things that make people brand them as villains from the start of their little lives. 

Enough monologuing about quirkless people, as intriguing as they are. Modern Art is the class she loves to teach, because art IS a beautiful skill that takes years to master. She wants to be the one to instill that love into her classes. 

Speaking of which- Her son had been in her class today. 

She’s wanted to teach him for years, and to finally have the chance? To finally have her kid sitting in her classroom, bright eyes peering at her from under his hair and hidden smile under his mask? 

She couldn’t be happier. 

“Oh, Kayama! You’re not going to BELIEVE what happened today.”

Yamada’s voice echoes throughout the lounge, bouncing off the walls and sending a few office supplies tumbling towards the ground. It’s enough to make her ears ring, but she logs out of her computer and turns to her friend regardless. 

All Might is wincing in the corner too. Oh, poor man’s ears must hurt. 

Something else will hurt, too, when she’s through with him for what he said to her baby.

“So, you know how you let your little listener have a sleepover yesterday?”

“Yes?”

Yamada does an excited little dance, and Nemuri can see Aizawa stumble in the lounge, exhaustion painted on his features as he collapses onto one of the couches. She gets it. Putting up with those little hero brats first thing in the morning must be tiring. 

“Okay, so maybe Shouta and I should’ve told you, considering you told us about little kayama months ago, but we only did this recently, and well….” Yamada opens his mouth to scream it, but the absolutely, 100% done Aizawa beats him to it.

“We adopted a kid, and yours practically glued himself to him.”

Oh??

“You don’t say. What’s his name, is he a good pick for my boy, and are you ready for a trip to a bar tonight? Drinks on me.” She clasps her hands together, a wicked smile on her face as she stands from her chair. 

Yamada grins despite being cut off, throwing his hands in the air as he answers. 

“Hitoshi, he’s a bit of an asshole like you-know-who,” Aizawa flips him off from the couch, “but I’m sure little kayama can work around that, and Hell yeah.” 

“Hold on, Hold on.” All Might steps forward, gaunt and gangly as he holds his hands out. “What’s this about kids?”

Oh, right. No one told him anything, even though he’s a new member of the staff. Basically all the teachers know about her kid, considering the teacher’s meeting Nezu gave a week ago. Now that she thinks back, All Might wasn’t there. Must’ve been a villain or something. Man, he must be confused out of his mind.

“Oh, you didn’t know? My son’s at this school, and apparently, Aizawa and Yamada’s as well.” She smiles, hand going to her hip as All Might’s confused frown grows worse.

“I understand if you didn’t know! We parents like to keep our kids out of the spotlight. Don’t want a villain coming after them now, do we?” She turns, digging through her purse and sending god knows what flying.

“I keep a picture of my kiddo in my wallet so if I’m ever Murked on the street in broad daylight they know that they need to look for someone.” She pulls out her wallet, nails shifting through the folds until she pulls the most recent picture out.

“Here he is, my little pride and joy.” She hands the man the picture, and watches in silent delight as the recognition sparks in his eyes.

He pales.

It takes everything in her not to laugh. That’s not very heroic of her, anyway. Even if the “Oh shit” look is an entirely new one on the #1 hero and she loves to see it.

“He’s in general education right now, but he’s got something big planned for the sports festival. Who knows, maybe you should keep an eye on him! His quirk isn’t bold, or flashy, but it’s pretty much like mine. Some could call it weak, some could call it strong...What I'm getting at is that he’s gonna make a boom in the sports festival. I’m so proud of him.” She holds out a hand for the picture, and All Might practically shoves it back in her hands.

“Our kiddo is in gen-ed, but only because he failed the heroics exam.” Yamada’s tone sombers, as he leans against one of the desks, “But if he’s been roped up with Kayama’s little listener, well. I can’t imagine what’s going to happen.”

Aizawa looks up from the couch, ragged hair mussed and eyes tired.

“All I know is that it’s going to be hell this year. I’m making your pockets hurt, Kayama, so get your brat and drop him off at home so we can go to a bar or something. I need to increase the speed I get liver failure.”

Chapter Text

School… goes well, all things considered.

Hatsume has to be told about their parentage, if she wants to help win the sports festival. She takes the news rather calmly- she doesn’t care about most pro heroes, so with the promise of being guinea pigs for her inventions, their secret is kept safe. 

Besides,  no one seems to connect the dots between Izuku and his mother, or anything of Eraserhead and Present Mic’s relationship OR shinso, so yeah, things are okay right now.

General Studies are okay so far. Present Mic is a good English teacher, and his mom’s lessons are always fun. 

But, neither boy can deny the longing they feel for the hero course, at the whispers of All Might teaching classes and interacting with students. Of actually getting lessons, or actually being heroic students. 

Izuku feels the pull, the want to make himself known and earn his spot in the hero course, but he has to push it aside for now. As a backup plan, he has to make sure his grades are as high as they get, and it’s hard. 

Hatsume has also made it VERY clear that she expects the both of them to eat lunch with her everyday, and poor Shinso gets dragged along without his consent. It’s sad, that he isn’t able to get away from Hatsume’s iron grip.

“Hey hoes.” The boy in question sits down at the table, lunch tray slamming down as he crashes into the seat, tucking his stupidly long legs under the table. 

“Hey there, giraffe boy.” Hatsume doesn’t look up from the notebook she’s doodling in, a random hunk of metal beside her.

It’s out of place at the lunch table, but since they’re pretty far from the rest of the happy, cheerful cafeteria, no one seems to spare them a second glance. It’s for that reason that Izuku disregards his mask, leaving it on the table beside him. 

“Look, just because my mom acts like one doesn’t mean I am.” He sniffs, nose upturned as Shinso rolls his eyes and starts to pick at his food.

“Like mother, like son. You just haven’t hit that moment yet when your true colors show.”

“I’m not going to have that moment, thank you.” He shivers, thinking of himself doing anything near to what his mother does. She’s badass and she knows it, but he definitely couldn’t show that much skin or bear the thought of people using pictures and videos to do…you know. That. 

 “That is not something I want to do. Ever.”

Without another word or teasing protest, Shinso pushes away his tray, and his head drops to his arms. The thump disturbs Hatsume’s doodling, but before she can squawk her protest, Izuku frowns. 

Normally Shinso eats more than that. And talks more, too, even if they’re dry, deadpan remarks.

“What’s up? You’re being all depressed and moody.”

Shinso lifts his head for a moment, tired eyes and dark eyebags staring back at him in mild amusement.

“Kayama, I’m always depressed and moody.”

“You know what I mean, jerk.” He huffs, and with a thump, mimic’s Shinso’s pose. “What’s up?” 

Shinso groans, and doesn’t bother to lift his head from the table. They all wait in silence for a few seconds, before Shinso finally starts talking.

“My parents just won’t shut the fuck up about something they’re planning for the beloved hero course. They KNOW I failed the exam, and instead of just talking about it when I’m not around, they talk about it all the time. I come out to feed the cats? “Oh, the kids are just gonna LOVE the USJ!!” I do my homework in the kitchen? “Oh, Shouta, have you talked to thirteen about the USJ? It’s going to be great for the hero course!” They won’t SHUT UP!”  He slams a palm against the table, and both Izuku and Hatsume jump. 

“Am I just being bitter? Hateful? So what? I failed, and the hero course is my dream. I don’t want to hear about other people living it. I don’t want to hear their daily lives, as heroes, and the perfect little heroic classes they both get the oppurtuinty to teach. You’d think they’d realize what the hell they’re saying, and how it would affect me as a PERSON, as well as their kid, but I guess not! They’re terrible parents. I wish I’d been adopted by literally ANYONE else.” 

Both Izuku and Hatsume wince.

No, It’s not Izuku’s place to criticize Shinso’s feelings. He’s one of the few people Shinso seems to trust, and it’s the least he can do to listen. 

He’d hate if his mom wouldn’t shut up about the hero course too. And he knows that Shinso misses his birth parents, and that Eraserhead and Present Mic aren’t anywhere near to getting close to Shinso’s heart. He’s bitter, hurt, and the world has done nothing kind for him. 

“Go on, tell me I’m a terrible kid. I’m waiting.” Shinso sits straight, angry glare flicking between Hatsume and Izuku. It’s a scary glare, and Izuku is terrified that he has it focused on him. 

“I…No. No, you aren’t a terrible kid, Shinso.” Hatsume starts, placing down her pencil. The crazy aura always radiating off of her seems to still, and she quickly brushes strands of hair from her face. 

“Your feelings are important and you’re allowed to feel that way. They don’t seem to be realizing that they’re hurting you, or they’re doing a terrible job trying to push you to work harder.”

Izuku nods, watching as Shinso’s defensive posture seems to relax. Like a cat, his angry, uptight posture drops back down as a cat’s hair would. 

“You’re allowed to not like them. You don’t have to be the perfect kid, and you can wish for different parents if you want.” He starts, and Hatsume nods from across the table. He hopes he’s able to de-escalate the situation, so no other curious kids peer from their tables at them. 

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe try and talk to them about it? They won’t get better unless you explain. Communication is key in many relationships.” He holds a finger up, and Shinso rolls his eyes. 

“Little hard to do that when my quirk can control you as soon as you answer a question.”

“Your dad is-” Izuku lowers his voice, “Eraserhead. He can erase your quirk in half a hot second. And Mic has a voice quirk too! You just need to suck it up and talk to them about it.”

“No.”

“Then suffer, I don’t care.” He shrugs, and turns back to Hatsume. 

He really does. He wants the relationship between them to improve, but sometimes that’s just not how life works.

“...Can I come over if things go bad when I try and talk?”

Izuku winks at Hatsume, who gives a coy little smile. 

Got him. Hook, Line, and Sinker.

“Sure. You’ll get to meet my mom, too. She might suffocate you on accident, but hey, she’s done a good job at not having that happen again.” 

“.... Kayama, I’m not sure if you’re joking or not and it’s really messing me up because considering who your mother dearest is, I can see it happening.”

Izuku doesn’t get to answer- because an alarm starts to blare, and voices chime over the intercom of a level 3 security breach. 

It’s all quiet and still for seconds- and then all hell breaks loose. 

Students start to yell, voices clamoring over each other as chairs get pushed back, people tripping over them and their own feet as they struggle to get through the halls.

“...Should we follow them, or??” Hatsume looks between the two of them, and then outside. “I don’t see anything dangerous, or any world class villains, and no teachers are running in here to help us evacuate. Should we sit tight?”

Izuku checks his phone, fingers quickly typing in his password as he struggles to get to messages. Nothing from his mom, telling him to evacuate, so? 

“I guess we just sit tight? I’m sure things will be fine as long as we all stay right he-” He turns, only to find Shinso’s chair empty and lilac hair disappearing into the crowd.

“SHINSO! Get back over here!” He yells, and the long legs of his friend carry him further away as Shinso completely ignores him. 

He doesn’t really have a choice but to follow. He’s curious as to what’s going on, too, and if it is bad, maybe he can help. 

Oh, hell. He definitely needs to go, because if Shinso finds a hero course student, words are going to fly and they’re not going to be pretty. Not with how bad of a mood his purple-haired friend is in. 

“I gotta go with him. He’ll antagonize another hero student if he sees them.” He frantically spits out whatever words his brain provides him with, and pushes back his chair as he grabs his mask. Hatsume hums in acknowledgement, back in her own little word as she tinkers with whatever… that thing is. 

Footsteps echoing off the tile, he adjusts the face mask and searches the crowd for purple hair. Thank the stars he’s gotten taller, or he’d never be able to do this. 

He finds Shinso staring in disinterest as a student with engines on his calves flies across the room, slamming into the wall with a painful crash that makes Izuku thankful to be on the ground. 

“What’s going on?” He manages to yell, as the student on the wall looks like he’s about to speak. 

“Media outside. Since All Might’s a teacher here, the media is just DYING to know about it. They somehow got past the gate.” 

Izuku peers outside, and is barely able to make out the flashes of cameras amongst the other reporters. 

“Can we go back to our seats now? I doubt you’re willing to listen to a hero student start preaching, from the looks of what that guy is about to pull.”

Shinso nods, and Izuku grabs onto his wrist and books it. Right in the nick of time, too- Engine boy starts to yell, and paired with his growing headache, he’s almost ready to die. 

“Listen. I know you haven’t had a good few days, and I’m glad you told me, honest. But you need to talk to Eraserhead and Present Mic, okay?” He sticks a finger to Shinso’s chest, grim frown pulling on his lips. “You won’t get them to shut up about it otherwise, and believe it or not, you can’t hole up in your room all the time. That’s not healthy and if you want to be a hero, you have to be able to talk things out and about your feelings.”

Shinso, hands in his pockets, sighs and throws his head back. The halls are temporarily quiet, and it’s enough time for them to stop walking. 

Izuku stubbornly matches Shinso’s tired glare, and the other teen finally gives in once his eyes start to burn. 

“Fine. I’ll try and talk to them, but if I fuck up, I get to stay the night and your mom doesn’t get to ask any questions, and neither do you. Deal?” 

If things go bad, Shinso won’t talk about his emotions. That’s not what he wants from this conversation, but if Shinso is at least talking to them, it’s better than what it would’ve been.

Sticking his pinky out, he lifts it and waits for Shinso to do the same. 

“Pinky promise? What are you, 5?”

“No, I just know the severity of a pinky promise. And deal. Just talk to them, for fuck’s sake.”

Shinso rolls his eyes, and locks his pinky with Izuku’s. 

“Deal.”

Hitoshi’s felt nervous about many, MANY things. From meeting new foster parents to starting new schools every other year, nerves are something he’s gotten used to. Nerves and disappointment. 

This time is going to go down as one of the worst. 

As he grips his backpack tightly and fishes around with the key, he has to take a deep breath and remember not to panic. 

If things get bad, or he screws up, Kayama is waiting for him in his stupid room that smells like lavender exploded.

The door finally opens with a click, and he walks inside the building that smells like bitter coffee all day, every day, the jingling of bells start to sound throughout the house. 

Before he can even kick his shoes off, the cats come barreling through the hallway, each one at a varying level of insane. 

“Hi, demons.” 

“Hitoshi?”

His momentary happiness and freedom from his nerves ends faster than it began, and he trudges into the kitchen. Hizashi is fooling around with something on the stove, and when he sees him, brightens up like the sun peeping from clouds. 

It’s enough to temporarily make him feel bad for what he’s about to say.

“How was your day? Oh, do you want anything to eat right now? I’m just making a little something for Shouta because he has patrol tonight, and-”

“It was okay, and no thanks. I actually need to talk to you two, if you don’t mind.” 

Hizashi’s smiley mood goes serious in seconds, and he pushes aside what he was messing with as he turns to focus all attention on him. 

“Yeah, sure, of course I don’t mind. Just let me get Shouta and you can change out of your uniform and we’ll sit down to talk about it, okay?”

He nods, and continues to walk to his bedroom. Once his door is safely shut behind him and he’s started to walk to the closet, his phone chooses to chime. 

Kayama: Did you talk to them yet????

Of course he’d ask that right off the bat. He hasn’t even been home for 5 minutes, how would he have been able to?

Shinso: yep. I cried, they cried, and they promised to never ever talk about the heroics class around me ever again because they don’t want to hurt my feelings and make me feel like i’m not worth anything. 

Kayama: wait rlly??

Shinso: no dummy, I haven’t even been home 5 minutes. I just told them I want to talk. Make sure your apartment door is unlocked because I’m gonna be zooming over there like I have a speed quirk. 

Kayama is typing…

He doesn’t wait to see his answer, and instead opts for pulling out random pieces of clothing from his closet. He just needs something to sleep in, so a simple tshirt and sweatpants will do. Just stuff that into his backpack, and he’ll be ready to go. 

Steeling his nerves, and begging that the vomit doesn’t try and make an appearance, he swings the bag over his shoulder and walks back out into the hallway. He can hear his parents’ voices from inside their bedroom so if he hurries- like, really hurries- he can drop his bag off by the front door and then walk into the living room to wait. 

He doesn’t know how this is going to go, and his mind doesn’t do him any favors.

But, he’s angry. And he’s tired of hearing things that he can’t reach yet, and he’s tired of trying to stay quiet around the house. He’s going to speak his fucking mind.

And then he’s going to run to the apartment of one of the only people he can call his friend. Yeah, things are going to go great. 

Absolutely great. 

Chapter Text

“What did you want to talk about?” Hizashi starts the conversation, hands cupping a mug as Shouta flops down on the couch beside him. The tension in the room rises, and Hitoshi stares down at the swirls in the rug.

He doesn’t know how to start this.

Fingers clenching around the hem of his shirt, he takes a shaky breath, and instead of starting the conversation like a normal person would, he says whatever word vomit comes to his head first.

“I just want to know if you two could shut up about the hero courses for once. Just asking, because you know, I failed the exam and I’m not where I want to be. It just sucks ass to come out of my room and hear you two blabbering about what you have planned for the precious little hero students when I didn’t make the cut to be one.”

The words come out nonchalant, and he’s quite surprised that they didn’t come out as a yell. Considering how bad his day’s been, and how his mood has only festered and gotten worse, he’s surprised he didn’t scream it.

His parents look equally surprised, although theirs is for an entirely different reason. He doesn’t stop talking- he won’t get the nerve to ever do this again so might as well get it all out in the open, right?

“Like, I get it. The hero students are going to the USJ. They’re gonna get to do everything I’ve ever dreamed of while I rot away in general studies. I don’t get everything I want, nor should I- I get that. But it just really hurts to hear you go on and on about it when you both know I failed the exam. If this is trying to push me to work harder, well, it’s not working. It’s just making me mad. I have a plan for the festival, and I don’t need your terrible attempt at encouraging me to work harder by reminding me of everything I’m missing out on.”

Shouta opens his mouth to say something, but the words don’t even get the chance to be heard over the rising tone of Hitoshi’s voice.

“And like, you’re obviously trying to be parents, but I know you just adopted me because I’m going to age out of the system. Teens aren’t adults, you can’t just leave us be, I have feelings too and just because I don’t talk to you about them doesn’t mean that I don’t have them! I just hate talking to adults in particular, and this has been a LONG time coming but I just can’t take this anymore if you won’t make a conscious effort. SURE, I’m preaching to the fucking choir here, but I wanted this to be different! I wanted you to make an effort to talk to me and engage with me so I would talk to you. I wanted you to try harder.  Hypocritical because I haven’t talked to you much at all, but I just wanted someone to actually try to MAKE me see the promise of it. No adult talks to me without criticizing or wanting something from me. I haven’t had adults who just talk to me for the sake of doing it. I’m not used to this. That’s why I wanted you to convince me otherwise.”

“Hitoshi-“

“It’s not like foster parents, you actually adopted me and you want me to consider myself your son. Well, newsflash, that’s not happening any time soon!”

His heart hurts. His dead parents probably wouldn’t like how he was talking.

He can barely remember his mother’s voice, but he can imagine it would be slightly disappointed if she could hear what he was saying.

His dad would ruffle his hair and take him to get some fresh air to calm down.

Neither of them are here, and neither of those things will happen. It’s just him, in the living room, with two people who want to care for him but do a terrible job. He should be ashamed of himself for what he’s said, because half of it is his own fucking fault, like everything else.

“HITOSHI.”

He looks up from the carpet, and barely manages to pull his fingers away from his shirt. Little crescent moons decorate his palms, and he realizes he did that through his shirt.

“Hitoshi, I’m glad you decided to talk to us about this. I didn’t know talking about it made you upset, and I should’ve. This won’t happen again-“

“This isn’t a business meeting. I’m your kid? Act like it.”

Shouta blinks, and looks to Hizashi, who looks like he’s about to cry. Oh, great.

“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to talk to you. But, you were right- I wasn’t going to know you wanted me to talk to you more because you wouldn’t talk to me. I’m sorry that we discussed the USJ around you, but I can’t apologize for not knowing that you wanted me to talk to you more. I had no way of knowing, and yeah, we might not be the best parents but I’m trying and so is shouta. We didn’t just adopt you because you’re going to age out. We noticed you as one of the only kids in the home that didn’t pester us with questions, but you knew who shouta was. We thought you’d be happy with us, and I’m sorry that we’ve done things that upset you. We’re trying, hitoshi.”

He’s being truthful. That part is obvious, anyway. It’s too bad he can’t make himself believe that he’ll ever have a place here.

“I know you want a kid who loves you and thinks the world of you.” His voice breaks, and a hand reaches up to wipe at his burning eyes. “That’s just not going to be me. And I’m sorry, you deserve better than me. I won’t be hurt if you put me back up in the home after this, I completely get it.”

He runs from the couch seconds later, even after Hizashi’s panicked yells. He can’t be here right now. Not after what just happened.

He discovers he’s crying, and as one hand reaches out to grab his backpack, the other pulls the door open, and then reaches for his shoes. Shouta’s voice is barely discernible over Hizashi’s loud voice, but he can hear the simple “Leave him be.”

The outside air hits his face, and the smell of coffee that torments him even when he’s not around finally fades from his head.

He hopes Kayama won’t mind that he’s in tears. He doubts he could stop them at this point, anyway.

“Izuku? Sweetie, someone’s knocking on the door.”

Pausing from his painting, he puts down the paintbrush and starts the walk to the door. His mom is in the middle of making dinner, messing around with who knows what, if the clanging from the kitchen is any hint.

The paint will come off the doorknob, so he doesn’t hesitate in swinging it open. He’s half hoping it’s NOT who he thinks it is, and that his talk with his parents went well, but he knows Shinso better than that.

“Hey.” He greets, and from the look on Shinso’s face, immediately knows things didn’t go well. He pinky promised that he wouldn’t ask- so the only thing he can do is let Shinso in, and shut the door behind him.

“Sorry that I’m covered in paint, I’m trying to follow a really old pre-quirk instruction video but painting trees is harder than I thought. There are far too many happy accidents on my canvas.”

“It’s fine. Thanks for letting me come over.” Shinso kicks off his shoes, and carefully scoots them over to the wall.

Izuku feels terrible just by looking at Shinso. He can’t be sure if it’s because of the dried tear stains, or the red-rimmed eyes, or the fact that Shinso just looks SAD and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Hey.” He places a hand on his shoulder, and watches as the wary lilac gaze trains on him. “You can come over whenever you need to, no matter the situation, okay? And I’ll never ask questions. Think of this as a safe place, okay?”

Shinso barely manages a nod, and starts to sniff.

Oh, fuck. He’s crying again, and Izuku doesn’t KNOW how to handle other people crying. So, he brings up a person who’s seen him cry hundreds of times.

“Come on, you want to meet my mom?”

He gets a nod in return, and Izuku starts to walk through the apartment. “She’s making dinner, I think. Either that or she’s waging war against something in there with pots and pans.”

Nemuri looks up as the two of them walk in, and smiles brighter than any smile the two have seen in days.

“Hi, boys!! You must be Shinso. You can just call me by my hero name, if you’d like, since it’s probably going to be difficult because you already call my boy kayama.”

“Whatever you’d like me to call you is fine by me.” He says, and Nemuri drops one of the dishtowels and walks towards the two, before stopping in front of him.

“Is it okay if I hug you? You just look like you need it, sweetie.”

Izuku sees the conflict waging war in Shinso’s eyes- from what he’d guess, Eraserhead is NOT a hugger. Present Mic probably won’t give them to Shinso either, from fear of being rejected, so he doesn’t offer. Who knows how long it’s been since he’s gotten an actual hug?

“…Sure, I guess.”

Nemuri acts immediately, pulling him into a hug.

Shinso’s frozen at first, posture stiff and hands rigid, but within a few moments his hands drop and he carefully hugs back.

Izuku can only watch, the worry that’s pricked him since Shinso went home lessening the tiniest bit. He doesn’t want to see his friend sad, and if he can do anything to help him, he will.

“Now, I’m going to finish dinner and then I have to go to my agency and do some paperwork for UA. I might not be back until you two are asleep, so if you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask Izuku.” She turns to her son, pointing a finger, “And I swear, if you make him sleep on an air mattress again, I’m taking away your riding with snipe in the morning privileges.”

She wouldn’t DARE.

“It’s not my fault!” He protests, and Shinso watches the interaction with the hint of a smile, “He refuses to sleep in the bed! I tried making him last time.”

“Well, try HARDER!” Shinso isn’t spared from her wrath, though, as she turns and points that finger at him. “You better sleep in that bed, mister, or I’ll rearrange seating in class and separate you two.”

“Fine by me.” Shinso says, and Izuku clutches a hand to his heart.

“Betrayal. You wound me, Shinso.”

“Good.”

Nemuri seems satisfied with their banter, and turns back to whatever vegetables she was chopping. 

“Come on, you can drop your bag off in my room.”

It’s a while until Midnight leaves, and Shinso is trying to act as normal as he can. He doesn’t want Kayama to ask about it, but he does want to talk about it, and then he doesn’t but… 

He doesn’t know. He has to face one of his dad’s in class tomorrow, so no matter what, this one night is the only break he’s going to get from the consequences of his actions. 

“-so? Shinso??”

Kayama’s gentle voice is the thing that finally snaps him out of his reverie, and he blinks his eyes to clear the fog from his head. 

His friend is watching him, worried gaze following his every move.

“Are you okay, Shinso?” 

No. No, he’s not. 

“Fine. How are we doing this sleeping thing?” He answers, and carries his bag from the floor to the dresser. 

Kayama doesn’t question, because he made a promise earlier that he wouldn’t. Regardless, Shinso wants to talk about it. He just doesn't know how. 

“You’re taking the bed, and I'm sleeping on the mattress. You’re staying here, and because I’m letting you, you have to sleep on the bed because I say so.” He answers, lifting the sheets and gesturing to it. 

Guess they’re going to argue again. 

“No. That’s your bed, I’m not taking it.”

Kayama frowns, and for a second, looks regretful. For what, he doesn’t quite know. 

“Shinso…” He walks up to him, feet dragging and gaze serious. “I’m sorry that I have to do this, but you need it.” 

Shimmering mist and lavender is all he sees and smells, and he can only manage to open his mouth to say something before everything fades off into the darkness that welcomes him. 

Izuku will deal with the regret of knocking Shinso out in the morning. He needs a good night’s sleep- especially if things were bad to the point that he had to act like he wasn’t about to break down at a moment’s notice. 

“Sleep well.” He whispers, and pulls the blanket over his friend. Shinso doesn’t even stir- the rise and fall of his chest is the only movement coming from him. 

Good. He needs the rest. 

Tomorrow isn’t going to be fun for either of them, but they’re just going to have to push forward. Izuku’s just going to have to be beside him as a pillar of support for whatever the next day holds. 

He can only hope it’s not anything that breaks him further.

Chapter Text

Waking up is the first part of his many problems- because whew, does he have a ton. No matter where he goes, or what he does, they never really seem to all go away.  

Surprisingly, though, when he manages to sit up and sleepily glance around the room, he feels like the problems have given him a break today. Aside from the glaring one that tormented him even in slumber and continues to tear at his insides like a ravenous animal, he feels more rested than he has in months. He can’t really understand why, until he looks at the floor and finds the sleeping body of his friend. 

Kayama must’ve used his quirk on him, considering the last thing he remembers is the overwhelming smell of the plant kayama just seems to adore.

Oh well, He can’t really be mad. He needed the sleep anyway, and if this is what it took, then so be it. 

Kayama… Looks pretty when he’s asleep. He always looks pretty- makes sense, after seeing his mother, but when he’s not talking up a storm, and he’s travelling dreamland, he looks peaceful. 

Hm. What does it look like when he’s asleep? He wouldn’t know. 

But, he doesn’t get to admire Kayama for long because it’s creepy, first of all, and secondly because Kayama’s cheerful little alarm starts to go off, and Hitoshi wants nothing more than to chuck it at the wall.

His friend blinks drowsily, hand rubbing an eye while the other pushes away the mess that his hair turned into. 

“Morning. Did you sleep well?” Hitoshi whispers, leaning over the side of the bed. Kayama pushes his face away, and mumbles something under his breath that he can’t hear.

“I know I did, after you used your quirk on me.” 

That wakes Kayama up, and the other boy frowns as he sits up, legs criss crossing under the blankets.

“You weren’t okay, and I could tell your lack of sleep was making things worse. I’m sorry I did it without asking, but based on the state you were in last night, I say it was necessary.” He shrugs, and stands slowly, arms reaching up and above his head as he stretches. 

“Come on, get out of bed. My mom’s going to make breakfast and unless you want to starve at school, come on.” He grabs Shinso’s hands, and starts to try and pull him off the bed. 

“No way. It’s earlier than the LAST time you let me stay over.”

“Yeah, because unless you want to run into your parents at school in the hallways, we need to get there early. Besides, Hatsume called me at 4:38 saying she’d finished a prototype of something for you. It scares me what that could be, but she’s pretty adamant on us being there. So come on, get up.” He stops pulling when he realizes that Shinso isn’t going to move, and stomps his foot. “Come ON.”

“.... No.” 

Kayama rolls his eyes, and walks towards his closet, pulling the uniform from the hanger. “If you aren’t up and moving by the time I'm out of the shower, I’m leaving you here. You can have fun trying to get out of the apartment once I lock the door from the outside.”

Lazily rolling over, Shinso finally lets his legs hang over the side of the bed. “That won’t stop me. I’ll just jump out a window.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Kayama points a stern finger, and disappears into the bathroom. 

It’s Hitoshi and his thoughts now. His thoughts that won’t leave him alone, as the anxiety grows stronger. 

He doesn’t know how to face his parents after yesterday. He doesn’t know how to fix what he said- or if he even can.

He probably made them cry. God, the only two people who took him into their home for more than a month are the people he hurt. His stupid, bitter mind wouldn’t let him try and voice it in a way they could understand. 

He’ll… He’ll try and talk to them soon. He doesn’t want to do that today- he doubts he can even maintain eye contact. He’s embarrassed for running away, he’s still hurting because of his lack of abilities to even get into the hero course, and… he just wants to cry. He can’t, though. 

He has to suck it up, and deal with it. He made his own bed and has to lay in it.

Kayama is a sweetheart, he really is, but this isn’t something he can talk about with him. He doesn’t want to impose, not when his friend has given him so much. Even BEING his friend is enough, and something he doesn’t want to take for granted. 

He finally pushes off of the bed, bare feet hitting the chilled floor. 

He’s just going to have to deal with it. He’ll work through these stupid things called emotions soon, but he’s not going to apologize. He was right to say what he did. He’s just… well, he doesn’t even know if they’re even gonna keep him at this point. He understands if he gets tossed back in the home- his old acquaintances will be “happy” to see him, and it’s not like his only dream would be shattered, right? He’ll live. It won’t kill him.

He just has to deal with the consequences of his actions, and this is it.

Kayama emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, dark hair plastered to his forehead as he blinks through fogged glasses, and smiles. 

It’s enough to make him feel better, because even if he’s fucked himself over, he has Kayama as a friend. 

And that’s enough. 

School goes on, dragging along in every class but his mother’s.

He’s still happy he’s in her class, and gets to have her as a teacher. It’s weird to call her by her hero name instead of mom, but he’s just happy to have her as a teacher at all.

He’s still worried about Shinso, though. He looks better, sure, and is acting like himself again, but there’s a look in his eyes that Izuku knows means trouble. That he’s not telling him everything.

And it’s not like he’s entitled to know everything about his friend, because he’s NOT, but he still worries because Shinso’s life is far from perfect and all he wants is to make sure the only dream his friend is still holding onto becomes reality. 

Anything related to that train of thought, though, ends when Present Mic bursts into their classroom, sending the door slamming against the wall as he runs to Midnight. 

All Izuku can hear is “Attack…” and “USJ” and… that’s enough. 

Present Mic turns and gives one worried glance towards the only kid in the class he has a connection to, and follows Midnight out through the classroom and down the halls. 

Izuku turns, and his heart cracks a little further because Shinso looks as pale as a sheet, and he’s- oh god, he’s trembling like a leaf, and Izuku is barely standing when Shinso slumps forward, head slamming against the desk and silencing the panicked whispers of the rest of the class.

It’s quiet for a few seconds, before mouths open and some students start to cry while others dig for their phones, checking news, calling family members, ANYTHING. He has to stop this before it explodes, and becomes uncontrollable and a mess of emotional teenagers who don’t have quirks suited to defend themselves.

“Okay- NO PANICKING! No panicking, okay?!” He barely manages to yell, and with a shaking finger, points to the door. “One of you, go lock that and make sure to use the security locks. We’re going to be fine. The attack is just at the USJ, we’re going to be okay.”

“S-Shinso isn’t!” A girl wails, and Izuku tries not to cry in frustration. YES, he KNOWS that, it’s obvious, but the best thing to do right now is keep everyone calm. Panic leads to Mass Hysteria, and Mass Hysteria leads to the worst-case scenarios, and those stupid windows that show how high up they are don’t help in the SLIGHTEST. Who designed this place?? He’s going to have a nice little chat with them because design-wise, this is TERRIBLE, and do they really think they’re just invincible? Glass is SO easy to break, what the hell?

“I know he isn’t but he’s not hurt! He just fainted! No villains are going to come for us- We aren’t heroic students, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep our cool and act like them. We’re going to be fine, but not if you all start to wail and panic.” 

That didn’t sound inspiring at all, and he knows it. He tried, though, and that’s all he can do as he runs to Shinso’s desk, coming to a stop and carefully pushing away lilac strands of hair. He can already see where a bruise is going to form, and where his forehead is starting to swell.

He’s not suffering, though. His mind isn’t tormenting him, and despite the terror that induced it, he looks peaceful from what he can see. He’s never seen him like that in the waking world, and that makes him sadder than most other things this universe has thrown at him. 

“I need water. Does anyone in here have a water bottle, or anything? He’s going to have a terrible bruise and swelling when he wakes up, and the best thing to do is keep that down.” He asks, and in the momentary pause, his brain runs WILD.

Mom’s going to the USJ, villains are attacking, mom could get hurt, mom could DIE, eraserhead is at the USJ eraserhead could be dead oh my god what will shinso do if eraserhead is dead? What will mom do are the hero course students okay is the school going to be attacked why can’t I BE there, I could help, why didn’t I take the recommendation exam I could be saving lives but I’m stuck here instead and people might DIE and

“Kayama? Here, I have a water bottle.” One of his classmates holds out a container, and Izuku stops the thoughts running in his head. He’s going to puke. It’s going to have to be after he tries to wake up Shinso, though, because he can’t handle all this by himself and Shinso is the most mature out of all them, honestly. 

“Thanks.” His voice sounds scratchy, and he feels like he’s going to choke, but he takes the water and pours it on his fingers, before flicking it in the direction of his friend. Shinso stirs the slightest bit, so he does it again, and again, until Shinso finally moves, fogged eyes glancing around the classroom.

“Hey.” 

Shinso’s gaze meets his, and Izuku can’t stop the stupid tears that well up in his eyes despite his attempt at holding them back. He shouldn’t be crying. He doesn’t have anything to cry about.

“Never do that again, okay? Don’t just fucking die on the desk, yeah?” He whispers, and Shinso mumbles something in return, something he can’t hear but accepts anyway.

“Do we just sit and wait? Will any teachers come to get us?  How do we know what’s going on out there?” A classmate asks, their voice worried. 

It takes everything Izuku has not to slam his own head into a desk, because now Shinso is going to remember what made him pass out in the first place, and he is NOT in the mood to have to worry about his friend going into head trauma. 

“We just wait, and hope that they’re okay. The teachers are there, and I heard All Might is too. They’re gonna be fine.” Izuku tries to be cheerful, tries to be reassuring, but he knows his words come out as more of a question than a firm statement. His classmates recognize it too. 

There’s not really anything they can do but wait.

His classmates all have something in common, though. None of them have to worry about losing a parent today- or with Shinso? Losing both. 

 There’s nothing either of them can do but wait with racing hearts and worried minds, because this IS the worst case scenario for them. 

He doesn’t want to lose his mom. He doesn’t want Shinso to lose his other parents, the only people who’ve offered to show him the parental love every kid deserves.

“I was horrible to them.”

The whisper is something only he can hear, and as he turns from his spot in his desk to face Shinso, he tries not to cry further. 

“I was so horrible. If- If they die, those are the last words I said to them. I told them I wasn’t going to consider myself their kid.” He sounds- there’s no real way to explain how he sounds, honestly.

He sounds devoid of emotion. And that’s scarier than seeing angry Shinso or sad Shinso combined. 

There’s no expression on his face aside from a growing look of sorrow and self-hatred in his eyes, as his fists clench on the desk and he tries to take a shaky breath. 

“I basically slapped them with what I said. And I won't get to take it back. I won’t get to apologize, because I KNOW they were trying. I was just being a bitter asshole like always and I fucked up. I really fucked up.” He laughs once, hands reaching up to wipe at his face. 

“And if they die, that’s the last thing they’re going to remember. That I hated them and that I didn’t want to be their son. I’m a terrible person, Kayama.” He finally looks up from the scratched desk, and smiles. 

“I’m never going to forgive myself.” 

Izuku can only watch in growing horror as his few words of advice fizzle out, and the classroom becomes a panicking mess again because of the alerts they’re finally getting from the USJ- the panicked messages from the electric user, who’d tried to spam every number he could remember from the top of his head. 

This is hell. And no matter what he’s going through, they’re going through- 

He knows whatever his mother and the other teachers are going through is much worse. 

Chapter Text

Nothing is worse than a quiet home. 

Even when he was a child and his mother went on missions, he wasn’t alone. Inko would watch him, teaching him and entertaining him with hundreds of stories while the worry for his mother faded away with the cheerful, cooing voice of the green-haired woman.

He doesn’t have that now, though. He supposes he could go to Inko, if he really wanted, but he doesn’t really trust himself to get through the crowds and safely find his way to his surrogate mother’s arms. He’s just going to have to stay in his apartment, pacing across the floor and biting at his nails. 

The Midnight boys had picked him up from UA and tried to reassure him that his mom was going to be fine- they hadn’t succeeded, sure, but they’d tried, and that’s what counts. They’ve been around for all his life, and they’re as much of family as Inko and his mother are. 

He’s just… He doesn’t know how he can try to stay calm anymore. He’s worried, and he hates that he wasn’t around to help and he hates waiting. It’s lonely here, and the only noise comes from the city below as cars speed and people talk, with their own happy lives that don’t have an effect on society like heroes do. 

He doesn’t want to sit here. He doesn’t want to sit with the nausea, the guilt, or the overwhelming feeling of just wanting his mom.

His feet carry him to the living room couch, and with a frustrated sigh that ends with him hitting his fist on a pillow, he flops down on the couch. 

Stupid, hot tears drip down the side of his face and hit his arms, showcasing his worries and inability to control his emotions with every silent plop. 

No, none of that. No self depreciation. 

Happier thoughts, like the sports festival. 

He wonders what people will truly think, once the news drops. Will society still be as accepting of Midnight? They’ll obviously disapprove of her parenting choices with the way she dresses, but that’s nothing that they have any business being concerned about. Her choices are her own and they have no right to think otherwise.

The sports festival will be fun for the heroic students. For him? 

It’s the only chance he has to prove himself. Time has shown him he should’ve taken the recommendation offer- but there’s nothing he can do about that now. He wouldn’t have met Shinso otherwise. He has to make his mark, he has to claim his spot because he can’t wait another year. The news of his parentage will be out as soon as the festival begins- that won’t guarantee his success. He has to make his own. Fun won’t be an option for him- he’s watched the festival every year from Inko’s couch, from the day he could recognize that it was his mama on the TV to now, even though she’d always been either in the stands or helping in an event somehow. He has to pass the preliminary rounds, and get to the one on one battles.

Absentmindedly tracing a pattern on the rug, he lets his mind wander further. If he gets into heroics, which class should he hope for?

Katsuki is in 1-A, so that might not be the best one to look into. Eraserhead is the teacher of that class, though, and he likes him. He’s a cool person and seems like a great teacher, and he’s his mother’s friend. 

If Eraserhead isn’t hurt or even worse, or you know, dead-

But on the other hand, Vlad King is the teacher of 1B and he seems really, really cool. Blood quirks are always interesting to see and learn from, and he pumps out strong heroes with big hearts and he’s just COOL. He always looks proud of his kids. 

It’s not really his choice, though, so there’s no reason for him to continue thinking about it. Nezu will decide where he goes, and that all matters on if he can make his mom proud and get into the top 3. 

He doesn’t realize how much time has passed, or that he’s half asleep until something soft falls on his legs, and it’s with sleep-heavy eyes that he barely cracks them open, blurred vision focusing on someone he knows and loves.

“Mom?”

Nemuri freezes, hands pausing from laying the rest of the blanket over him. He stills for a few moments, glasses slipping down his nose as his mother blinks back at him. He didn't even hear the door open- he must've been more out of it than he thought.

“Oh my god-” He struggles to sit up, feet kicking the blanket off to the side, “You- You’re okay, you’re not hurt?”

Nemuri practically runs to the other side of the couch, and before she can even sit down, Izuku’s stupid tears come back full force and he’s crying. 

“Hey, hey.” Bruised hands reach out to cup his face, and she carefully wipes away a tear, “I’m okay. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get home earlier- things… They were bad. It took a while to give a testimony to the police force and even then, I had to get to Recovery Girl afterwards.” 

He hates that he’s crying, because he’s making this about him when it SHOULD be about his mother but there’s no option to really turn his tears off. 

“What happened? Is everyone okay? More importantly, are- how bad were you hurt?” 

Nemuri sighs, and she looks older than he’s ever seen in the years he’s existed. It’s confusing, it’s strange, and there’s nothing he can do to fix it. 

“I shouldn’t tell you this because you’re a child, and you shouldn’t need to worry about things like this, but…” She retracts her hands, and places them in her lap instead. “I can’t shelter you from the world forever, or the evils that live in it.” 

She smiles with sad eyes he’s never really seen, and it just feels like a punch to the gut. Yeah, he knew this was serious, sure- but to see his mom’s usually cheerful demeanor reduced to this? It’s worse than what he thought. 

“There’s apparently a new villain league. They call themselves the most unoriginal, unclassy name I’ve ever heard of. League of Villains is terrible, but-” She sighs, shaking her hand as she dismisses the thought, “They’re dangerous. They had this monster- I don’t know how to describe it. I’m going to go with it was worse than anything you can imagine, in terms of power and appearance, it was the exact opposite of All Might. He couldn’t beat it.” 

He knows his mouth drops, but he can’t be bothered to shut it right now. He might not like the hero, but in terms of power? He was the definition of it. He saved millions of lives, and he was a shining beacon of hope that people could look to. How- How was he unable to beat it?

“Not right away, anyway. When we ran in, it was terrible. All the kids were terrified, and by some reason short of a miracle, they were all alive. The little frog girl in heroics had some pretty bad disintegration on her face because of one of the villain’s quirks, but she’ll live. Quite a few kids got knocked out, some more had minor injuries, but they were all okay. All Might, once he had a moment to breathe, was able to send the monster sky high. We had to fight to give him the chance, though.” She smiles tiredly, fingers running over swollen wrists.

“It was bad. And i couldn’t use my quirk in that situation, so you need to know that you can’t just rely on yours. I know you’ve heard it before but we’re going to have to really enforce it, okay? The bad people are still out there, and it was a bitter reminder for me today. The sports festival…” With this, she frowns, but ruffles his hair with a bittersweet smile. “I have no doubt it’ll continue as planned, despite the attack. You have to be at the top of your game, okay, kiddo?”

He nods, and wipes at the drying tear tracks still painting his cheeks. 

“I’m just glad you’re okay, mom. I was really worried, and I tried to keep the class calm but I did a terrible job. I’m not like you when it comes to pressure, I did a bad job and I’m horrible at comforting people.”

“You’re not like me, and that’s a good thing. You’re YOU, and the last thing I ever want you to think is that you have to be like me. You don’t. You never have to do anything if you don’t want to.” She says, fierce fire alight in her eyes. He can’t even open his mouth to continue, because she’s not done and she makes that oh so clear. He knows not to interrupt his mother in her tangents.

“You are not me. You’re my son, and I love you SO much, sweetie, but you aren’t me. Everything I do, you never have to. You only do what YOU want to do. Be the hero YOU want to be. You don’t have to listen to what anyone says, or their opinion. Just know that I will ALWAYS be proud of you, no matter what you choose to live by. You’re my son, and I’ll always love you no matter what path you choose.” She ruffles his hair again, and opens her arms for a hug.

Obviously he returns the gesture, and as he scrunches his eyes shut, lets himself feel like a kid again. Nemuri’s heartbeat is there, thumping in the rhythm it always has, and she hums the same little song she’d never told him the origin of. All he knows is it’s something about clouds.

Clouds is something his head feels full of as the drowsiness he’d been fighting kicks in full force, and his eyes gladly stay shut as his thoughts run to happier places in the different spins of reality that many people love to call dreams.

Things were not okay for Hitoshi. Not at all. 

That was an understatement, honestly. “Not Okay” was nowhere near the level of panic that he felt but it’s the easiest thing to say. 

He'd been left to sit in Nezu's office for hours on end. Kayama had sat with him, of course, but when it was announced that some people were to pick him up, he'd regretfully given him a glance and followed out the door. 

He doesn't blame him. He would've left early too, if he'd had someone to pick him up. He had to wait alone in the office, with security cameras being the only thing keeping him from snooping through Nezu's drawers. 

Yamada had come flying in to get him, bruised and bleeding and refusing to answer questions as they ran through the hallways and towards the faculty parking. And after that. they'd arrived at the hospital, and well. That's where he was doomed to be for now.

His parents are okay. They’re both okay and while that took off loads of stress off his shoulders, the fact that his one parental figure is in the hospital after almost DYING adds more right back on.

He doesn’t know how to apologize. Would it be easier now to do a test run in the hospital room, when he knows Yamada is asleep, or should he actually wait til he’s conscious and awake?

Thoughts aren’t something his mind wants to submit to right now; it’s a protest, a way of rebuking him for bashing his head in on his desk earlier, probably. 

But, the smell of hospital anesthetic and beeping of machines don’t do anything to help with the pit in his stomach that acts like a black hole, sucking in every other emotion that could alleviate the guilt and pain he feels right now. 

Yamada snores lightly from the chair, and Hitoshi fidgets in the chair.

They’re both out so they won’t hear whatever word vomit comes from his mouth, and, like, he just… 

He wants to apologize now. He doesn’t care if they don’t hear. 

He finally shifts in the seat, and uncrosses his legs with a sigh. 

“I-” His voice comes out louder than he wanted, and it’s with a wince and a quick look around the room that he finally forces himself to relax.

“I’m sorry for what I said to you.” 

Aizawa doesn't answer- as he shouldn’t. If he did, Hitoshi would probably scream and end up causing him to like, flatline or something. 

“I shouldn’t have said that. Like, at all. I mean-” His hand rests on the back of his neck, and he tries to whisper. “When I said that I wouldn’t consider myself your son. That was wrong.”

...He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. They’re both practically dead to the- wait. Bad example.

They’re both asleep, unconscious, etc… 

So it’s just him and his thoughts. 

“What- What I really should’ve said, was that I need time? I guess? I don’t know, okay? I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this, you’re both out so you can’t hear me but whatever. I don’t know. I- I’m not just going to forget about my birth parents and just accept you two. And maybe I should, but.. I don’t trust adults. And you’re gonna have to give me time but…Maybe, one day, I can.” 

Oh. There’s tears on his face again. 

The coarse sleeve of his shirt wipes away the tears, leaving burning skin in its wake. It’s what he deserves, and brings him back to the reality of the hospital room. 

Yamada snores on, and Aizawa remains as still as he was when he first walked in. Black against white, beeping echoing along the walls, everything in here is an opposite of the other and makes him really think. 

“Look. I was worried about you today. Both of you. You know, not many kids have to worry about losing their parents twice, right?” He laughs, something not really feasible in a whisper, but it happens anyway. It’s probably something he should talk to a therapist about, if he ever trusted one to not diagnose him with things he didn’t need. He’s never having anything to do with a muzzle again, not if it kills him. 

“I thought I wouldn’t get to say sorry. I haven’t ever wanted to apologize to people before, really. I’ve wanted apologies. I wanted one from my dead parents for leaving me. I wanted apologies from the assholes in middle school for the way they treated me, but.. I’ve never really given an apology. So this is a first for me, because I know I crossed lines. I said things I shouldn't have. And you- you’ve given me so much and I’ve been a jerk about all this. And I’ll apologize.”

This hurts to say, but it's preparing him for the real deal when he has to actually talk to them face to face later. It's a soothing balm to the festering self-hatred in his mind, and even if it's just a simple little apology, it takes away some of the guilt and pain he feels. 

“So. I’m sorry. And I'm not expecting forgiveness, or anything. And I know that I’m going to have to say this all again later, when you’re actually awake and not almost dead, but whatever. I just had to say something or I was going to explode. It’s weird, sitting in a hospital when both of you are out. I can’t do anything but talk anyway, so.” He shrugs, and pulls his knees to his chest, (or at least attempts to) and sighs. 

There’s nothing more to do. The cats need to be fed at home, but his only ticket there is asleep in the chair next to him, and based on the fight they’d both nearly died in, he needs his rest. 

Sitting in this chair for a little longer won’t hurt. 

Chapter Text

Hi guys!

First off, I want to apologize for not updating for a while. I've had a lot going on and haven't had the proper time to sit and just have time to write, but as I'm now on vacation, I will try and update this week. 

Secondly, I just want to thank you guys for reading LS so far <3 It means a lot for y'all to even read through this so I'm thankful. 

And third, the ship might be changing in this fic. I'm not quite sure where it will end up being yet- I've been going through my outline, and for now, I've decided to remove the relationship tag. I'll add it back when I'm sure in my decision. 

A new update will be coming soon! Thank you all for the support again. It means a lot. 

- Chen