Work Text:
Little Momma
It’s an eventful patrol.
Jump had been more trustful this time, allowing the hero to tag along and help him with scuffles and victim support a few times. They’d even taken a break together, sitting ten feet apart on a rooftop drinking vending machine drinks, coffee for Aizawa and spicy cider for Jump, and exchanging daily happenings a bit.
The hero knows he’s nowhere near trusted enough to be truly confided in, but the little images he gets of the individual’s day to day happenings, from issues with colleagues or stressful shopping trips, give him the feeling that the walls are slowly getting lower.
Granted, he’s given this access at the price of his own daily life, regaling stories about Zashi’s hairstyling mishaps, Nemuri’s fist fights with r/EntitledMothers Christmas shopping, and Oboro’s general complaints due to the fact he was the only one doing any paperwork for the agency…
Yeah, he’s had Jump laugh at his expense way too much to not feel somewhat comfortable with the heathen by now.
He just hopes the other feels the same way.
He’s just finishing his route, leaping over a familiar alleyway a few blocks from his Agency, when he hears a warbling mew drift up from the dark.
Changing direction midair, Eraserhead drops down into the side alley and looks around cautiously for threats. Though, he has a feeling no one would linger in a night as fucking freezing as this one. Still, he glances around, hearing another pitiful mreew from near the alley dumpsters, and makes his way over to what looked like a pile of cardboard.
It was, in fact, a pile of cardboard. But it’s what’s in the cardboard that has him pausing.
A thin, blue eyed tabby face peers up at him from the dark, small damp body curled tightly around a fearfully still mass of little pink faced bodies.
The momma cat lets out another thin mreeew that cracks Eraser’s heart, and the hero immediately drops into a crouch.
Gently, he holds out a hand, knuckles forward, waiting for the momma to sniff him, rubbing a cold forehead against his dry skin promptly afterwards, before he reaches for the box. She blinks up at him, tired, trusting eyes gazing up at him as he tucks the wet box as close to his chest as he can, before hurrying out of the alley towards his Agency.
If anyone has any complaints about her, he’ll fight them himself.
It’s not until a month later, when the holiday season is starting to peter out again, that Aizawa unlocks the door to his joint apartment with Hizashi, bright blue cat bag over his shoulder, and introduces the newest member of their small family to the space.
Wide crystalline eyes scan the area curiously, face filled out to a healthy triangle and fur sleek and shiny after weeks of regular feedings and warmth. Her belly was still a bit loose, which is expected considering she just finished weaning her kits a week before from her milk. Each one of six kittens, now healthy and scampering around like the hellions they are, are living at various cat café’s and trusted colleague homes.
Mrow? Aizawa blinks out of his thoughts, looking down at wide blue eyes peering up at him from where the momma cat sits on his foot. Reaching down, he gently strokes the back of his hand down the momma cat’s back, reveling in the smoothness of her fur, at the shine that waves between the stripes of color.
He smiles gently as she starts to purr at the attention.
“Welcome home, Sakana.”
___
Meddlesome Bastard
It’s routine.
There was a drunken brawl in a side street, and Eraser jumped down to break it up.
He was making headway, the men giving stink eye to their opponents as they start sliding away.
When a spine chilling RRRYAAAAAAWLLL splits the icy air.
Eraserhead drops to a crouch immediately, just as a black mass flies over his head to collide with a man who’d been sneaking up on him from the shadows. The man lets out a scream as his face is clawed by the raging ball of black matted fur, and Eraser straightens just in time to engage the suddenly hostile men charging at him.
He gets them subdued quickly, after all they were still drunk, and key’s in a pickup location for the squad cars.
He’s just finishing tying up the last thug when a rasping mrrrrr comes from the dark of a dumpster. Remembering his warning, he moves quickly to where a black mass is pressed close to the alley wall, the stones damp where the previous week’s worth of rain wouldn’t have reached.
When he gets close, he can barely hear the raggedy breathing coming from the dark mass, and worry fills Eraserhead’s gut at the iron blood smell coming from it.
Gently, he tries to reach for the cat, knuckles out, but there’s a flash of silver and he pulls his hand back with a hiss. The bastard got him with its claws.
Taking a breath, keeping his voice low, he speaks to the cat, trying to gently coax it to calm down, to let him closer, let him help. All the while, the creature’s breathing gets shallower and more wet, until, finally, as blue and red lights start flashing down the alleyway, it seems to pass out from the strain.
Quickly, the hero wraps his scarf around the mass of matted black fur, noting the long gash along its side from one of the thugs’ knives, and hurries towards the officers.
After a quick explanation of the scene, and only a vague excuse, he runs as fast as he can to the 24 hr clinic he’s been to for Sakana whenever she gets ill. The staff knows him and his husband. They also know that he brings strays as much as he can for shots and checkups whenever he can spare time on patrol.
So the attendant isn’t surprised when he bursts into the door with a bleeding black cat held close to his chest.
That’s where Hizashi finds him three hours later, having fallen asleep in the reception area waiting for results. Normally, he’d just drop the cat off and ask for an update over the phone. But this time… if he was being honest, the cat had saved his life. Tsukauchi called him to update him on the men’s quirks, and the one that snuck up on him, identified by the long jagged claw marks marring his face, had a quirk that hid him in his intended target’s periphery. Aizawa wouldn’t have known he was there if not for the cat launching at his face.
So, Aizawa waits.
And is rewarded four hours later to chaos.
The cat, now with less matting and a stitched up side, launches out of the back rooms and beelines for where Aizawa and Hizashi sit drinking coffee. Aizawa goes to catch it, but that proves unnecessary as the bastard leaps up and collides with his chest, pushing the grown man back into his seat with a huff as the bulky body claws up onto his shoulders then his head, its tail lashing in discontent as it hisses at the frantic vet techs.
It’s silent a beat.
Then Hizashi starts cackling like a maniac.
Needless to say, an hour later finds Aizawa and Hizashi opening their apartment door, the Erasure Hero with a black cat still on his shoulder and the Voice Hero with a wide smile. The cat, who had practically inhaled the three cans of wet cat food the clinic staff had provided the hero with, looked around with its dark brown eyes (eyes that didn’t reflect light which had them later test the tom to find he has a quirk that allows him to absorb light instead of reflect it, go figure) and lets out a low rumbling merp before leaping down onto the back of the couch.
Sakana trills gently, twisting from where she’s draped over the arm of the couch, and looks up at the tom with wide, curious eyes.
Aizawa grunts, waving a hand between them, “Sakana, meet Hiru. Hiru, meet Sakana. Now, get along, problem children.”
To which, the cats look over at him, and both promptly letting out ear piercing yowls, and Aizawa can’t help but smile as Hizashi laughs loudly from the kitchen.
___
In the Snow Bank
It’s a stakeout.
Jumpsuit’s thin breathing has become a white-noise to Eraserhead’s left while Sucker Punch walks a lap around their designated warehouse. They weren’t told to engage tonight, just gather information. But with the storm front coming, and more and more snow starting to gather on the sidewalks and rooftops, those orders may change.
Jump huffs beside him, their mask letting out a cloud of steam briefly before filtering out the heat and the vigilante shifts from where they’re sitting.
Eraser smiles briefly from behind his own mask, feeling absolutely no pity for the vigilante’s plight. It’s their own fault for not accepting the winter coat Eraser had offered them. They can suffer in the cold for all he cares.
As if sensing his sadistic glee, Jump tilts their body enough to peer over at him, their shoulders rising as if about to start an argument, but a crackle over their comms interrupts them.
It’s the Agency.
The storm is moving faster, meaning they’re calling the night a bust. Soon, they won’t be able to see an inch in front of their noses.
Eraser confirms the order and prepares to jump away, Jump right beside him.
A shout makes them freeze in their tracks.
Punch is sprinting towards them, arms held close to their chest. Eraser feels his quirk activate on instinct, scanning for a threat, but can’t see anyone following. Jump steps forward, about to ask what the matter was, when Punch reaches them and promptly rips Eraser’s winter jacket open.
He shouts in offense, body seizing at the fucking cold that invades his meager pocket of warmth, when something else fucking freezing is jammed into his chest.
He’s about to swat away the vigilante, to demand that the fuck is wrong with them, when he looks down and see’s the frozen object being crowded into his chest.
The cat shaped frozen object.
He doesn’t even get a word out before his jacket is being zipped back up, his scarf wrapped snugly around the small thing, and being shoved across the roof.
Jump and Punch help him down the fire escape, Jump pushing a strap on helmet on his head before Punch pulls him on the back of their motorcycle and speeds away.
All the Erasure Hero can do is pull one of his arms close, gently rubbing the little frozen body held close to his ribs.
Praying desperately for a chance.
An hour and a half later, he’s spoon feeding a warm cat-milk formula to what looks like a 5 week old ragamuffin kitten. The poor thing’s eyes are still swollen shut, its legs wobbly from its brush with death, but they’d done it.
They’d gotten to the Agency in record time, Punch pulling him off the bike easily and pushing him through the door with a shout of save the baby before disappearing down the street in a streak of red tail-lights. After that was a blur of heating water, warm towels, gentle chest compressions, and a hairdryer, before a gentle, thin mewl came from the small creature that made everyone in the Agency cheer in victory.
They already had cat beds and blankets for strays they kept in the back, along with feeding stations and toys for when the strays came calling. But this was the first little little kitten that’s come to them, and Aizawa was loath to leave them at the Agency on their own.
And with Punch detailing in text how they found the little tyke in a canvas sack thrown into a snowdrift to die…
Well, let’s just say the kitten was getting all the loves and cuddles it probably never got in its short life.
So, again, it’s not surprising in the least, when the early hours of morning finds the tired Erasure Hero lighting on his balcony, little fluffy warm kitten tucked safely in his jacket as he opens the window to his home.
As if sensing the little one, Sakana comes trilling up to him, eyes reflecting the streetlights as she peers down from where she’s perched herself on his shoulder, and trills again as the kitten turns to look at her with its own mismatched gaze.
Chuckling softly, Aizawa brings the kitten out, smiling at the gentle purrs from the tabby cat, and whispers, “Meet the newest member of the family, Sakana. Little Keba darling.” The kit mewls at him, and he smiled as he boops the kit’s tiny nose with his pinky, “Merry Christmas, you little problem child.”