Chapter Text
Aizawa groaned.
It was Saturday, one of the few free afternoons he ever got to enjoy. It had been going perfectly; he had been on and off napping on the sofa, his calico cat purring on his lap. There wasn’t much more he could ask for.
That was, up until the point his phone started ringing obnoxiously from where it sat on the coffee table. He stared at it for a few moments, debating whether he could be bothered. Begrudgingly, he sat up and reached out for it, hitting accept.
“Hello, this is Morimoto Iwao from Social Services. Is this Aizawa Shouta?”
Aizawa hesitated. The voice was gruff, gritty. He was also stumped as to why Social Services of all people would be ringing him.
“Yes,” he answered shortly, silently prompting the man to continue.
“I am unsure whether you are aware, but your sister has recently passed away—”
Aizawa near short-circuited. His sister? Inko? Dead? He hadn’t known. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he found himself largely unaffected by the news.
“—and in her will she appointed you as her chosen guardian for her son- your nephew.”
If he hadn’t already been taken off-guard before, he certainly was now. He hadn’t been aware he had any biological family other than his parents and sister, not that he’d seen any of them in years; 15 years in the case of his sister, since she left home at 18, and 12 years in the case of his parents, since he followed suit at 18. Even if he had wanted to get into contact with Inko, he had no way of doing so. His parents had basically disowned her, for reasons he didn’t know, so he couldn’t ask them.
And now he was in charge of her son ? Aizawa didn’t even know how old the kid was or what his name was and now he was expected to raise him? He was 30 and worked two jobs, neither of which gave him much free time. He wasn’t prepared for this sort of responsibility.
“Hello, Sir, are you still there?” the other spoke up, breaking Aizawa out of his musings.
“Yes, of course, sorry about that.”
“He is currently staying in temporary housing, but you will need to come collect him and fill out some paperwork at some point within the next week, as soon as possible preferably.”
The only free time he had was the next day. Looks like he was going to be having a long conversation with Hizashi tonight, perhaps it would be best to cancel his patrol.
Sighing, he relayed this to the social worker.
With a quick confirmation of meeting time and address, the call ended and Aizawa was left to question what he was going to do now.
It was inching closer to the time Hizashi would return. Deciding that neither of them would be doing any cooking that night, he took it upon himself to order some takeout.
It was half an hour later, when he was dishing the food out onto plates, that the front door to their apartment opened.
“Honey, I’m home!” Hizashi called out in English.
Aizawa nearly groaned. Hizashi had taken to saying that phrase when he got back from the radio station most days now, quoting that American sit-com from the 1990s that Aizawa could never be bothered to learn the name of.
Hizashi walked into the kitchen and raised an eyebrow.
“Takeout?”
“Yeah, we need to talk.”
Hizashi gasped and put his hand on his forehead dramatically.
“I knew it! You want a divorce. But what about the children? We can’t do this to them! Oh, our poor, imaginary children, this is going to be so hard on them,” he joked.
Aizawa levelled him with a glare.
“Hizashi. I’m being serious.”
Slight concern formed over Hizashi’s face, but he didn’t say anything more, instead just grabbing his plate and sitting down at the table. Aizawa followed suit, sighing as he sat down.
“So,” he began, questioning how he should go about this. Hizashi just looked at him patiently.
“How do you feel about kids?” he settled on.
“Like adopting? I would love to,” Hizashi answered, some of his worry dissipating but still a bit wary.
“Good. I got a call from Social Services this afternoon to inform me that I was now responsible for a child.”
Hizashi sputtered and shock flew over him, however Aizawa could also make out undertones of excitement.
“How?!”
“Do you remember Inko from when I’ve mentioned her in the past?”
“Your estranged sister? She left when you were 15, right?”
“Yeah, turns out she had a son. She apparently died and left guardianship of him to me in her will.”
Hizashi grew concerned again, “I’m so sorry, Shou.”
Aizawa brushed off the apology, “It’s fine. I barely remember her and the little I do remember is her having arguments with our parents.”
If he recalled correctly, most of those fights were about Inko’s boyfriend at the time, his name was Hisashi or something along those lines. Those fights always ended with her leaving in fury and then disappearing for at least a week.
There was silence for a bit, Hizashi looking at Aizawa with unease, trying to piece together whether he was being honest or not. Aizawa rolled his eyes. He really wasn’t all that bothered, there was a hint of an emotion he couldn’t identify nestled in his gut, but it wasn’t like he was going to break into tears over a woman he barely knew. He really wished they could get back onto the actual problem at hand.
“So, what’s your nephew called? How old is he?” Hizashi asked, supposedly dropping the dead sister topic, at least for the time being, and opting to ask about the topic he was excited about.
Aizawa froze and looked away.
“You didn’t even ask the social worker what his name is!?” he exclaimed incredulously.
“I was a bit too shocked to actually question the man,” Aizawa reasoned, “Anyway, we’ll find out tomorrow when we go pick him up.”
Hizashi’s eyes widened, “TOMORRO-oowww?!?!?!”
Aizawa winced as he blinked and allowed his hair to drop back to his shoulders.
“Yeah.”
“Where are they going to sleep? What will they wear? We don’t even have groceries! What if he isn’t in school yet? Who’s going to look after him then? What if-”
Aizawa cut in, “Calm down. I don’t know whether you have forgotten, but we have a spare bedroom. I’m sure he has enough clothes to last him a few days until we go shopping. We can pick up some groceries before we pick him up tomorrow. If it comes to it, we both have enough holidays left to stay off until we have childcare sorted.”
“Okay. We can do this,” Hizashi said, reaching across the table to grab his husband’s hand.
“We can do this,” Aizawa confirmed.
—0—
“We can’t do this,” Hizashi fretted.
Aizawa reached out and knocked on the door, “Too late.”
The door swung open and a man stood there in a suit. His skin was grey and grainy, like a statue; likely related to his quirk.
“Aizawa Shouta?”
Aizawa identified the gruff voice as the social worker from yesterday.
“Yes, I take it that you’re Morimoto?”
Morimoto nodded his head, “Yeah, come on through. Midoriya is waiting to meet you.”
“Midoriya? What’s his given name?” Hizashi spoke up.
Morimoto faltered, “...You’ve never met him? He spoke as if he knew exactly who you were when I informed him.”
“No. I didn’t know I had a nephew until you rang me yesterday,” Aizawa responded.
“Oh. Are you sure you want to do this? You can choose to give up guardianship if you want to but that means he will have to go into the foster system.”
Hizashi jumped in, “No, no! We talked about it and we can’t wait to meet the little listener!”
Morimoto let out a breath of relief and smiled again, “That’s good to hear. Oh! His given name is Izuku. We should head in now, he’s probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”
With that they walked through the door. Aizawa noticed the piles of shoes sitting by the door, it must’ve been a group home.
Quickly, Morimoto ushered them into a living room. Immediately, Aizawa noticed a green-haired teenage boy sitting on one of the sofas, he guessed he was probably a year or two younger than his current class at U.A. He was actually relieved to see that Izuku was older, at least he had experience with teenagers.
Izuku stood up and offered his hand, which Aizawa accepted. He noted that the boy’s hands were relatively bony and his knuckles were bruised purple. He had a feeling that was something that would be addressed at a later date.
Hizashi jumped in for a handshake, “Hey, little listener! I’m Yamada Hizashi, but you can just call me Hizashi!”
Izuku quirked an eyebrow, lazy grin stretched across his face, “Present Mic, Eraserhead, pleasure to meet you.”
Both heroes froze. Despite Aizawa’s natural appearance being near identical to his hero persona, there generally wasn’t enough footage of him for people to know who he is, nevermind recognise him. On the other hand, Hizashi’s civilian look normally threw most people off his identity.
“How’d you know?” Aizawa questioned.
Izuku chuckled, “It’s really not that difficult. I may have only been a few years old at the time they first aired, but Mum recorded the Sports Festival from the three years you took part and I watched them all the time growing up. The announcer would read your name and she would point out ‘Look, there’s Uncle Shouta’. Also, Hizashi said ‘little listener’ and bears a striking resemblance to the hero who presents ‘Puts Your Hands Up Radio’.”
“Fair enough, kid. Don’t call us by our hero names off-duty though. However, I don’t really care whether you call me Aizawa or Shouta.”
Izuku just nodded.
Morimoto cut in, sensing a lull in the conversation, “I’m just going to get the paperwork you need.”
With that said, he left the room and the three remaining retreated to the sofas, Izuku taking one and the other two taking another.
It was only quiet for a moment before Hizashi started chattering again.
“‘Midoriya’, is that your dad’s name then?”
Aizawa grimaced. That probably wasn’t the best question to be asking, it’s obvious the father was out of the picture in one way or another or else they wouldn’t even be taking in Izuku in the first place. However, he was surprised when Izuku gave an off-handed answer.
“Yep! I don’t know why I still have it, haven’t seen him since I was 10 and he was arrested.”
It was obvious that both Hizashi and Aizawa were taken off-guard by the loaded answer, especially since it was offered with so little care.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Hizashi attempted apologetically.
“Don’t be, he deserves it,” Izuku snapped, face hardening.
Silence lapsed over them. Aizawa took the time to fully analyse Izuku. His dark green hair was shaggy and it looked like it hadn’t seen a professional hair stylist in years if ever, he was outfitted in a black hoodie which was at least a few sizes too big and the bruises weren’t limited to his knuckles, a fairly fresh one also rested on his jaw. Suddenly, he realised what he’d really gotten himself into. This kid definitely had some issues and now Aizawa was the one responsible for helping him work his way through them.
The awkward tension was broken only when Morimoto came back through, carrying a handful of papers.
“Since guardianship was left in the will, there’s only a limited amount of paperwork that needs done,” he stated, either ignoring or unaware of the tension he’d walked into.
Taking a hold of them, Aizawa leaned against the coffee table, took a pen and began to sign certain sheets. This continued until he turned to Izuku.
“Do you want to change your last name?” he asked.
“To Aizawa?” Izuku replied, hesitant, a far cry from his snappish attitude earlier.
“Yeah, it’s your choice though,” Aizawa reinforced, ensuring Izuku knew he was under no obligation.
There was only a second of thought before Izuku gave a firm nod despite the conflicted look Aizawa could see he was attempting to hand behind his bangs.
Aizawa slipped the paper and pen across the table for him to sign, narrowing his eyes when he noticed how shaky the younger’s hand was as he wrote. Nerve damage? Looking at the bruised hands, he wouldn’t be surprised.
Once he was finished, Morimoto smiled, “Looks like that’s it. Midori- Aizawa, you can grab your bag on the way out and then you can be on your way.”
Looking at Hizashi and Aizawa, he finished off, “It was a pleasure meeting you both, have a good day.”
With his farewell given, he left, the newly established family following close behind him. Once they reached the front door they waited patiently as Izuku shoved his feet into some scuffed red shoes and slung a stuffed yellow backpack over his shoulder.
The car journey back to their apartment wasn’t as tense as it could’ve been, with Hizashi chattering about nonsense, Izuku adding his input every so often and Aizawa focusing on driving.
Aizawa looked in the rear view mirror at his nephew, pleased to see him chuckling at a joke Hizashi made.
Let’s see if we can do this.