Work Text:
Shouta Aizawa hasn’t been a teacher for that long. He hasn’t been a teacher long enough to have favorites or to see what his students become. He’s getting there, but he hasn’t been a teacher long enough yet, not yet. Still, he supposes, a few short years can be a lifetime to others.
Like to the little girl lying in the hospital bed.
He knows he can get going. He knows he doesn’t need to stay here, that there are plenty of trained staff at the hospital who can help little Eri should her quirk activate again. He knows he should get some sleep and come back when he’s asked to patrol again.
But at the same time, he doesn’t know that.
He hadn’t been the one to pull her out of that godforsaken place, too bloodied and beaten himself to do much of anything. He had only managed to erase her quirk just in time to save both her and Midoriya.
He hadn’t known then, and he still doesn’t know now, not yet, not really. There are many things he still doesn’t know because he hasn’t been a teacher for that long, but still… Still, the one thing he does know is that there’s something different about this girl.
“The bullet erased Togata’s quirk completely?”
When he heard that, when he heard what they were doing to this sweet, brave child, using her power to erase quirks, he still didn’t know what would come.
But it was definitely the start of something.
So that’s why he’s standing there now, staring at Eri from behind the glass, dry eye be damned, watching and waiting for her to wake up.
God, how he wants her to wake up.
Because all he knows is that he has this feeling, this feeling that he desperately, desperately wants to know this girl. He wants to know what makes her laugh and smile, what she likes to eat and what her favorite color is, what her hair would look like in a braid and how high she skips.
He doesn’t have those words yet, not yet. He only has the feeling they make.
“Working late, Shouta?”
The chipper voice breaks Shouta from his thoughts. He turns to his left to see Principal Nedzu looking through the glass with him. Normally, he’d spare a second to contemplate his ongoing debate over whether he was a large rat or a small dog, but he doesn’t bother today. He just looks back through the glass at the little feverish girl who still hasn’t woken up.
“You could say that,” he offers in answer. Nedzu just nods, always smiling.
“Well, make sure to head home soon. I’m sure you’ll need your sleep in the coming weeks.”
Shouta thinks he means to patrol Eri, to be ready should her quirk activate again. It’s not until later he knows what he really means.
This routine continues for about a week.
Shouta finds himself wandering into the hospital earlier than his scheduled patrol, staying later than he needs to, parked in front of the glass unless absolutely necessary, waiting, always waiting, for little Eri to open her eyes.
And on more than one occasion, Principal Nedzu calls to see if he’s still there, lingering long after his patrol. Each time, he offers only the same advice.
“Make sure to head home soon. You’ll need your sleep in the coming weeks.”
But Shouta never needs sleep. Or rather, he always needs sleep, so now is no different than any other time. Part of him feels like he’s been training his whole life for this, this moment, to watch and wait for this girl to wake up.
And then, she does.
When Eri opens her eyes, all she knows at first is that she’s not in that horrible room anymore with those horrible people.
This room, she sees, is white and clean and has a big window. She hasn’t looked out a window in a long time. She takes a moment to do so now, to enjoy the light cresting on the horizon. Then, inexplicably, she finds herself drawn to the other window, the one on the inside.
She turns her head and sees a figure standing there. Not a scary figure like Overhaul or his minions, but a figure she thinks she recognizes. It’s a man with long black hair, black clothes, and a strange scarf.
She thinks he was one of the people who came to save her, along with the nice blonde boy and the green-haired one, too, but she can’t remember. She only remembers hurting, hurting…
The memory of it makes her hurt again. Her horn begins to glow, and she feels herself hurting again.
Not again…
But before it can get worse, before anything happens, before she remembers her body being ripped apart and placed back together, it just… stops. It’s so simple and calm the way it stops, like when she thinks she’s going to have a nightmare but it turns into just a simple dream.
She turns towards the inside window once more and sees the figure standing there, only this time, his hair stands straight, his eyes glow red. I have red eyes, too, she thinks at that moment. And as she has that thought, his hair falls again and his eyes return to black, but he still watches her, he always watches her.
For a moment, out of a strange impulse that seems so new to her, so foreign and distant, she tries to smile. She wants to smile at the man so much. It doesn’t feel like happiness, that’s not the right word maybe, but out of gratitude. She wants to say thank you.
I need to smile to thank you.
Eri can’t get herself to smile yet, not yet. She doesn’t remember how. But it’s okay, she realizes, it’s okay. Because the man who made the bad dream go away, the man who stands and watches her at the window continues to watch.
And he’s smiling for her.
Eri wants to meet the blonde boy and the green-haired one. She wants to know their names, to thank them for saving her, to thank them for all their help. She desperately wants to know their names. Maybe they’d even want to be her friends, too. She’s never had any friends, not really.
But first, she wants to know the figure’s name.
He’s the first one they let into the room besides doctors and nurses. Probably because he can make the bad dreams go away, she thinks. She watches him carefully as he slowly walks in, takes a stool, then sits down next to her as she remains on the bed.
“Hi,” he says to her quietly. He’s fiddling with his hands as his arms rest on his knees. She notices his throat move when he swallows, and she’s not sure what any of that means. But she notices.
I need to know your name.
“They call me Eraser Head,” he says.
“Eraser…” she starts to say. It’s a strange name. She doesn’t know if she likes it.
“But,” he continues, “You can call me… Shouta.”
Shouta. That sounds better.
“My name is Eri,” she offers, and she feels safe when he gives her a small smile.
“Yeah, I know, little Eri. I’m glad to see you’re awake.” She watches him for a moment, her big eyes meeting his narrow ones, and it’s strange, it’s so strange, but she feels like she’s known this man for much longer even though she just learned his name.
“You make the bad dreams go away,” she says.
“Bad dreams?”
“When I…” and she stops, shrinking in on herself, realizing she doesn’t actually want to talk about it, afraid she’ll bring them back. She’s looking down, but she notices the man’s hand lift, as if it’s going to reach for her. Even though she doesn’t mean to, she flinches. He stops after that, clasping his hand and pulling it back.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, Eri.”
“No, I’m sorry…”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” She looks up at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” She’s not sure that’s true, but his voice is reassuring, so she tries to believe him.
“Shouta?”
“Yes, Eri?”
“I… I don’t have to go back there, do I?” She doesn’t specify, but she thinks that Shouta will understand what she means anyway. And he does. He shakes his head ever so slightly at her, never taking his eyes away.
“No, Eri. I promise, you never have to go back there again.” She nods, and suddenly her mouth feels very dry. Before she can say that, though, Shouta slowly stands and reaches for a pitcher and a glass on a side table. He pours some water into the glass, puts down the pitcher, and hands her the glass. She needs both hands to take it, and his hand doesn’t move from it until she firmly has it in her grip. She takes a few gulps, then hands it back to him.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“You’re very welcome, Eri.”
They’re quiet again for a moment as she grasps at the blanket, afraid to ask the question she wants to ask next.
“Shouta?”
“Yeah?”
“...Where am I going to go now?”
Shouta’s quiet for a second. He’s pressing his lips together, and she’s afraid of what he might say, not knowing what the options are. But Shouta, she’s already decided, is very comforting. He’ll say the right thing. And he does.
“We’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll make sure you end up somewhere safe, where you’re happy and taken care of.”
“Promise?” He gives her another soft smile. She decides she likes his smile.
“Promise.”
Shouta stands in the doorway while Midoriya and Togata visit Eri. He’d understood the hesitancy to have them visit, but she so needed to know their names, and Shouta knew it wouldn’t be enough to just tell her himself.
Even though part of him wanted it to be.
He watches like a hawk. She seems fine, the students handle the visit well. Still, still… What he really wants to do is to hold her little hand in his and tell her everything will be okay, but every time he tries to come close, she still flinches. So, all he can do is watch.
It’s enough, for now.
He’s supposed to go back to UA with Midoriya and Togata, but he tells them to go on ahead, feeling the need to check on Eri one more time, just one more time. He does this every time he’s here, checking on her again as if he thinks he left the stove on. This time, though, Principal Nedzu is there, too, and stops him.
“Checking on little Eri again?”
“Yeah, I just want to make sure she’s settled before heading back to UA.”
“Hmm, I see…”
Shouta sees that look in the rat’s eye, the look that indicates he’s about to reveal some deduction he’s made. He’s not sure he can bring himself to care at the moment, eager to continue on.
“You’ve grown quite attached to little Eri, haven’t you, Shouta?”
Shouta stops in his tracks at that, whirling around to look at Nedzu. “I… don’t know what you mean. I have to watch her, to stop her quirk if it acts up again.”
“Yes, you need to use your quirk that erases quirks to stop her quirk that can rewind quirks.”
Shouta blinks. “Yes…?”
“Rather similar, don’t you think?”
“I suppose when you put it like that, yes.”
Nedzu chuckles, and it’s weirdly unnerving, the way the principal seems to be in on a secret about Shouta that he, himself, doesn’t know.
“I’m sure you know,” Nedzu continues, “that they’ll be releasing Eri from the hospital soon.”
“I do.”
“You wouldn’t have any thoughts about where she’ll go next, would you?”
“Well…” Shouta starts hesitantly, “She has no available next of kin, and with a quirk like that and her… recent experiences… the foster system would be a terrible fit for her.” Nedzu’s nodding, encouraging Shouta to continue. “So…” He knows Nedzu has probably already thought of what he’s going to suggest, but that doesn’t make him any less concerned that his idea will be rejected. “So maybe she should come to UA and live in the dorms. It would be safer for her if I were around. To erase her quirk, as needed, of course.”
“Of course,” Nedzu says.
They stand there for a moment. Shouta shifts back and forth as he waits for a response from Nedzu, who’s mostly unreadable as always. He’s smirking, though, like he’s holding onto that secret as if it’s just bursting to come out. Then, it does.
“Shouta, you wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the quirk soulmate theory, would you?”
Shouta doesn’t know what he thought Nedzu was going to say, but it certainly wasn’t that.
“The… what? No. What the hell is that?”
Nedzu seems to grow tired of Shouta’s fidgeting and begins to, mercifully, walk in the direction of Eri’s room. Shouta follows readily.
“It’s not often discussed in scientific circles, not yet anyway, but the quirk soulmate theory states that unique, special bonds can be formed between people who form a close relationship and have… similar quirks.”
Shouta stops at the last two words, not missing the inflection Nedzu gave to them. His face is, annoyingly, unreadable as always.
“You’re not seriously suggesting…”
“Oh, I believe we both know I am very seriously suggesting.”
Shouta blinks a few times. “Nedzu, she’s a child. ”
“You humans are so unimaginative. Quirk soul bonds can form in any type of relationship, and many are familial in nature, even when they don’t occur within families. You already know a bonded pair, in fact, though I’m afraid they, themselves, haven't figured it out yet.”
“What are you talking about, Nedzu?” Shouta’s thoughts begin to spin, trying to decide who Nedzu could possibly mean. He knows, or he thinks he knows, though, even without knowing anything about this theory that was presented to him two minutes ago. All he has to do is think for five seconds about who else seems to be as strangely attached to someone as he has found himself to Eri, and…
“Hmm, Shouta, we might need to work on your observation skills if you really don’t know. Young Midoriya is in your class, after all, and it’s not like All Might does a great job of hiding his paternal feelings for the boy.”
Shouta is trying to put together too many pieces at once. Nedzu has just dropped not one but three deductions on him. First, he honestly believes soulmates are a thing. Second, he’s saying Midoriya and All Might are soulmates. Third, he’s suggesting he and Eri…
“Nedzu, I’ve known Eri for maybe two weeks.”
“It doesn’t always take that long.” Then, Nedzu’s handing him a book, a library book titled Quirk Soulmate Theory. Shouta takes it silently, unsure of what else to do. “In any case, you read this over a bit while I’ll make the arrangements for Eri to come live at UA. She’ll be considered a ward of the school, but I trust that you’re more than interested in taking over primary guardianship duties until more permanent arrangements can be made.”
Without saying anything else, Nedzu turns and walks away, leaving Shouta to stand outside of Eri’s room, holding a book in his hand that feels more like a bomb. He grips it tightly, then turns his eyes away from it just long enough to see Eri asleep in her bed, resting and safe. Shouta clenches his jaw and lets a truth settle upon him that he hadn’t admitted to himself over the past two weeks.
His whole life is about to change.
It doesn’t take long for Nedzu to get the approval for Eri to live at UA.
They decided not to say anything to Eri until they knew it was an option, not wanting to pull the rug out from underneath her if it didn’t work out. Shouta knew that Nedzu would be able to follow through, but still, he couldn’t bear to put Eri through any more hurt.
And he especially couldn’t bear to be the one to do it.
He hadn’t really read the soulmate book, choosing to skim it for parts that seemed important instead. Mostly, he was surprised to find how little it took to convince him. He had hesitated a bit at the assessment, even though the scoring seemed to put him and Eri in the right bracket. But what really did him in was the chapter on knowing needs.
Shouta hadn’t been able to explain it until he read that section in the book. Still, he had felt from the beginning that he understood things about this girl that he had never understood about anyone else. He just knew when she was tired or hungry or… afraid. What he didn’t know, though, was that it was a two-way street. She could know what he needed, too. He’d unpack that later.
So, when Nedzu tells him that Eri has approval to live at UA, Shouta simply hands the dog back the book and insists on being the one to tell her.
And Nedzu doesn’t question it.
Shouta approaches the glass first as he always does. He makes sure that Eri sees him so he doesn’t startle her. In that moment, he realizes that she doesn’t always look up right away as others approach, but she always looks up for him.
Always for him.
He enters her room slowly, takes the stool, and sits beside her bed as he’s done every day since she’s been here, and she’s waiting, listening patiently.
Only now, she’s smiling.
Ever since the UA Festival, she’s been smiling every so often. Not as big as she did then, not as frequently as Shouta would like, but she does it, and it makes him feel like he found something precious every time.
Especially when she smiles at him.
He returns it softly, too afraid of what he needs to tell her, afraid that she can sense his fear over the newly-discovered bond. He’s not exactly afraid that she won’t want to live at UA. After all, she’s already been there. Plus, knowing she can be around Deku and Lemillion will comfort her. If he’s being honest, what he’s really afraid of is that she won’t want to live with him.
“Eri," he starts, “I have some news for you.”
“What is it?”
“You remember visiting UA and hanging out with Deku and Lemillion?”
“Yeah!” Her smile grows a little wider, giving Shouta courage.
“Well, you asked me a while ago where you would go after being here…” Her smile falls a bit but her eyes are still wide, listening. He continues. “We got permission for you to come to live at UA in the dorms. That way, Deku and Lemillion can visit you anytime you want. If you want, that is.”
He watches her for a moment as she processes this information.
“What about you, Shouta?”
“What about me?”
“Will you be there, too?”
His heart freezes. He swallows the lump in his throat, too happy that she asked that.
“Yes, Eri. I live there, too. In fact… You can live with me if you want.”
Eri has also become more comfortable with small forms of contact since the UA Festival. A head pat. A hand holding her hand. Sometimes, she lets some people pick her up. (Mostly Lemillion, to Shouta’s dismay.) But now, in this magic moment, she crawls over from her spot on the bed into Shouta’s lap. His eyes widen in surprise, arms pulling away slightly to give her space as she brings her tiny arms around Shouta’s waist, burying her face in his chest. When she settles, Shouta dares to let himself bring his arms around her in kind.
“I was hoping I could live with you,” she says.
Shouta’s not a crier. He’s never been a crier. His stoic nature doesn’t just come from years of practice. It’s an instinct he has, the inclination to show no emotion. Sometimes he thinks it’s because he doesn’t feel much emotion, and maybe that’s true. But in this moment, in this beautiful moment, he feels a single tear roll down his cheek as he dares to clutch Eri a little tighter.
“I was hoping that, too, Eri.”
A few weeks later, Shouta has almost all but forgotten his life before Eri.
He and Hizashi moved a bunch of stuff out of his apartment, things that would have been hazardous or just in the way for her.
“Wow, Shouta, I’ve been telling you to get rid of this crap for years and now all it takes is one little girl?” Hizashi teases.
Shouta ignores him.
He’s ready to fill his apartment with whatever Eri wants, whatever will make it feel more like home to her, but she’s still uncertain. Shouta tries to understand their bond a little better, tries to see if he can understand what she might want or need, but it’s jumbled, and it makes him uncertain, too. She’s so hesitant most of the time, so afraid, that he still can only get four feelings from her. Hungry. Thirsty. Tired. Afraid.
In the meantime, he gathers a collection of toys and books so she has something at least, and to show her that it’s okay. This is her home, too, now, and he tries to tell her that in his mind.
I need you to feel safe here. I need you to know this is your home.
It doesn’t happen at first, not right away. It’s a slow process, he knows. UA finds a therapist for Eri in addition to the quirk counseling she’ll undergo. And he’ll be patient. Shouta knows now he’ll always be patient for Eri.
But God, it’s hard.
Then, a few weeks in, the most miraculous thing happens. Eri gives Shouta a name that he didn’t know he already longed for but will change his life forever.
They’re reading a book in her bed. Normally, she’d be drifting off by now, but she still seems wide awake. Shouta worries a bit, trying to register I need to sleep from her, but he doesn’t feel it. So, he just keeps reading for now.
“And the penguin mommy and the penguin daddy were so proud of their penguin baby. The end.” Shouta closes the book after he reads the last sentence and turns to look at Eri. She’s staring at the book, seemingly lost in thought. Shouta turns his head slightly to look at her better as she’s curled up next to him.
“Eri? Do you want to go to sleep now?”
She shakes her head no, so he starts to look at the other books on the nightstand beside him to choose another.
“Shouta?”
“Yes, Eri?”
“Do I have a mommy and a daddy?”
Shouta turns back to her. Eri still isn’t looking at him, and he can see tears welling in her eyes. Idiot, Shouta thinks to himself. Why did I have to read that book? It didn’t matter that she had chosen the book. He feels he should have known better.
But there’s no turning back now.
“Well…” He’d been thinking about how to broach the subject, knowing it would come up sooner or later. Admittedly, he had been hoping it would happen in the presence of her therapist. He can’t let the question hang now, though.
“Everyone has one kind of mommy and daddy,” Shouta starts carefully. “Mommies and daddies are how people come into this world.” He really hopes this conversation doesn’t go in that direction, so he continues on. “Some kids live with the mommies and daddies that bring them into the world. Others live with new mommies or daddies later.”
Eri seems to think about this for a moment. “He said he was my dad…” She says quietly. She doesn’t need to finish her thought for Shouta to understand her.
“No, Eri, he was not your dad,” he says with great insistence. “He said that to keep you to himself. Real dads take care of their kids. They make sure they’re happy and safe and loved.” Shouta turns slightly to take her chin into his hand and draw her eyes to his own. “He was not your dad, okay?” Shouta says this in no uncertain terms.
Eri’s eyes well with tears. “Are… are you my dad?” she whispers.
Shouta thinks he’s going to cry.
“Do you… want me to be your dad?”
In the smallest voice he’s ever heard from Eri, she answers, “Yes.”
He smiles, eyes wet. “Then yes, Eri. I’m your dad.”
She gives him a small, still tentative smile, then wraps her arms around him. Shouta returns the hug softly, gently, happily.
Shouta’s been given three names in his life. First, there was the name his family gave him. Next there was the hero name Hizashi gave him. This is the third name he’s been given, the name dad.
It’s by far the best one.
Shouta hasn’t been a dad for that long, but he thinks he’s luckier than most parents. After all, how many other parents can just know what their child needs?
But it also poses some complications he doesn’t think of until they arise.
First, he’s getting less sleep than he normally does. That alone doesn’t mean much to Shouta as he’s used to running on fumes. It’s the reason why he’s getting less sleep that hurts so much.
He always wakes up to Eri’s nightmares.
He wants to wake up, he’d rather wake up than sleep through them. He just wishes she didn’t have the nightmares, that he could stop them before they even start.
Every time it happens, every time he bolts upright from her need, I need to feel safe, he runs into her room and activates his quirk just to be sure, just because it makes her feel safe. He always finds her there curled up under her blankets, weeping, weeping. He hates those tears, those tears that are too old and too large for a child her size, but he will always endure them for her, so she doesn’t have to carry them alone.
He’ll walk into the room, sit on her bed, and pull her in close. Her tears will soak into his shirt, keeping it cool and wet for the rest of the night, but it doesn’t matter, it never matters. He holds her close and whispers sweet words to her until her tears stop and her breathing steadies and she falls asleep again.
The nightmares are the first complication. The next complication is harder to work out.
He can’t always be there for her nightmares. It’s the truth of an underground hero. They’re naturally nocturnal. He doesn’t return to hero work until her quirk is under better control, until he can leave her with Mirio or someone else for the night. But it’s not the nightmares that pose the problem this time.
It’s his reaction to them.
Because unbeknownst to both of them, Eri has gotten used to how Shouta simply understands her. She never has to ask for food or water, she never needs to come into his room when she has a nightmare. He just knows. So she doesn’t realize that others don’t know.
Shouta runs straight home when he gets the call from Mirio.
“I’m sorry, Eraser. There’s clearly something wrong, but when I tried to find out what, she couldn’t tell me and I couldn’t figure it out on my own.”
“It’s okay, Mirio, this is my fault.” Mirio looks at Shouta incredulously, as if he can’t fathom how it could be his fault. “I’ll explain more later. You can head back to your dorm now.”
When Mirio leaves, Shouta heads to Eri’s room. She seems to have calmed down, but she’s still visibly upset. He feels it over the bond. It’s jumbled, but he gets the gist.
I need to know what I did wrong.
“Eri?”
She looks up at him as he sits on the bed. Fresh tears are flowing. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I know you were working.”
“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s my fault.”
She gives Shouta an equally confused expression as Mirio. “How could it be your fault, Daddy? You weren’t even here.”
“Yeah, I wish I could have been.”
“I know you can’t always be here,” Eri says. It hurts Shouta’s heart. She shouldn’t have to know that. He wants to always be there. But that isn’t the point right now.
“No, sweetie, that’s not it. I mean, it’s true, I can’t, but…” He sighs. “What I mean is, there’s something I haven’t told you yet that made tonight harder for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He can’t decide how to explain this without bringing up bad memories for her. “When I first met you,” he starts, keeping that part vague, “I felt like I could understand you easily and you could understand me.”
“You do understand me, Daddy.”
“I do, and I love that I can understand you,” he nods. “It’s just… That’s something that’s special between us. You and I are… similar in a way that means we can understand each other. I can understand what you need without us having to talk about it.”
“Like how you know when I’m hungry or thirsty but I don’t have to say anything?”
“Yeah, sweetie, exactly like that. But what I haven’t told you is that other people aren’t part of that, only you and I can do that with each other. So even though I know when you’re hungry or thirsty without you saying anything, Lemillion doesn’t.”
“Oh…” she says softly.
“All that means is we’ll help you practice telling others what you need, okay?”
“Okay…” she says. She still seems unsure, so Shouta waits to see if she’ll say something else. “Daddy?”
“Yes, Eri?”
“Why can only you and I do it?”
Shouta has a lot of thoughts about quirk soulmates and the strangeness of the whole phenomenon. Even though he gets it from having one, that doesn’t mean it makes sense to him. But he decides to save the philosophical debate for when she’s older. He’ll stick to the basics for now.
“Other people can do it with each other, they just can’t do it with us,” he starts. “Sometimes people are very special to each other because their quirks are similar.” He doesn’t want to get too far into that explanation, afraid of what it will bring up for her, but it’s important. “Our quirks can both… change quirks. They’re not the same, but if two people have quirks that act alike and those two people are close, then sometimes they can just understand each other, too.”
Eri thinks about this for a minute. “Does that mean you’re the only one who will ever understand me like that?”
“I don’t know, Eri. I hope you can do it with someone else someday. It’s pretty nice, right?”
She smiles a little bit, and Shouta can’t help but follow suit. “Yeah, it is,” she says.
“And you know what?” Shouta adds, “We actually know someone else who can do it, too. Deku has someone he can do it with. Do you remember Mr. Yagi?”
“That tall, thin man?”
“Yeah. Deku can do it with Mr. Yagi.”
Eri’s smile grows. “That’s nice. I’m glad Deku has a daddy, too.”
“Well, I don’t think he calls him that, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, Eri. Maybe you should ask him sometime.”
Shouta knows he’s planting a landmine with that comment, but honestly, he kind of wants to see it go off.
“Okay, I will, Daddy.”
The day Nedzu offers him the papers, Shouta is ready.
He would have signed them right there in Nedzu’s office, the papers that would make Eri legally his own child, but he can’t do that. He needs to ask Eri first.
Although he has no reason to believe she’ll say no, he can’t just make such a big decision about her life for her. Well, perhaps he could, that’s kind of the job of parenthood he supposes, but he won’t.
So, he heads home that evening and sits Eri down at the table next to him.
“Hey, Eri, I need to ask you something.”
“What is it, Daddy?”
He pulls the papers out of his bag and places them on the table before her. He knows she can’t read them yet, but it feels better this way.
“So you know how I told you that some kids live with the dads they start with while others live with new ones?”
“Yeah?”
“Even though you didn’t start with me, you’re with me now, so I’m the second kind of dad.”
“Yeah, you are!” She smiles happily as she says that, and Shouta smiles, too.
“Well, when kids find dads that aren’t the ones they started with, they have to do more stuff to make it official.”
“What do you mean ‘official’?”
He’s not quite sure how to explain this to his kid, even if he’s been practicing it for weeks, but he’ll do his best.
“‘Official’ is like a promise, Eri. Right now, you’re under the temporary care of UA. ‘Temporary’ means ‘not forever'.” He points to the papers in front of him. “But if I sign this, if I write my name on this, then you will be permanently under my care. ‘Permanent’ means ‘forever’.” He bends over slightly to catch Eri’s eyes, which are currently focused on the paper.
“This paper is a promise,” he says softly to the girl he already thinks of as his daughter. “If I sign this paper, it means I’m telling the world that I am your dad, and I will raise you and protect you and love you forever.” Her eyes are growing wide as he braces himself for the final thought, the actual question.
“Eri?”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“I want to sign this paper very much. But I will only do it if you want me to.” He swallows the lump in his throat. “Do you want me to promise to be your dad, Eri?”
I need you to say yes.
She doesn’t even hesitate.
“Of course I do.”
He smiles, then pulls her in close.
“Thank you, Eri. That means so much to me.”
So the next day, Shouta takes Eri’s little hand and guides her to the local courthouse. Nedzu comes along to represent UA, while Hizashi, Togata, Midoriya, and All Might join them just for extra celebration. Before his daughter, before the court, before their little group, and before whatever higher being might be out there, he makes a promise to Eri, a promise he’ll never take back.
To be her dad forever.