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Shouta walks through his front door and heads straight for the couch, promptly collapsing face first into the soft cushions. He lets out a guttural groan before he sits up slightly to fish around in his pocket for his phone.
As soon as it’s in his grasp he whips it out and goes straight to contacts and calls Tsukauchi because he has so much shit going on in his head right now it’s ridiculous. And most of it will need legal assistance.
Tonight was supposed to be a rather boring shift, just his usual rounds of patrol. But then, of course, the world looked straight at him and laughed because now he was consumed by the thoughts of a certain green haired kid that seemed to be getting fucked over by the world again and again.
The detective picks up on the second dial tone.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of a 4am phone call from you?” Comes the Detective’s gruff, sleep tinged voice.
“I let an obviously abused kid run away on his own.”
Silence.
A full 20 seconds pass before a heaving sigh fills Shouta’s ear.
“What do you mean.”
“Exactly that. The robbery that was called in earlier tonight was at the kid’s house and I witnessed a conversation I wasn’t supposed to. Kid’s parents are in some deep shit apparently because the man robbing the house warned the kid of just how dangerous it was to stay there.”
“Jesus christ. I hate bad parents.” The detective scoffs, Shouta can hear rustling in the background. He makes a noise of agreement because, yeah, shitty parents are the worst.
Tsukauchi speaks again, “So what do you need from me?”
An amused smile crosses Shouta’s face. Tsukauchi has never been one for trying to talk in circles. Straight to the point, as always.
“Need you to help me find him again. He has green hair and eyes which should narrow down the search. Given name’s Izuku. Kid’s pretty young too, probably not even in the double digits yet. Unless he’s just small.”
There’s a hiss from the other end of the call and Shouta relates. A kid so young shouldn’t be having to lie to pro heroes to protect his parents and their obviously not-so-legal after dark activities or running away because their own house isn’t safe. Not to even mention the obvious neglect coming into play.
“Alright. I wrote all that down and I can look in the system later when I get to work.” A pause. “You seem pretty intense about this. Usually you brush these kinds of things off, especially since it seems the kid has a backup plan. Did something else happen?”
Shouta stares blankly at the ceiling, he should’ve known he couldn’t just get away with this kind of thing.
“Nothing really happened. There’s just something about the kid that makes me want to help him. Don’t know why.”
The detective lets out a little hmm sound, like he’s already figured Shouta out before he can do it himself.
“Well, in that case, I’m gonna go. I still have a few hours to sleep. If and when I find anything on the kid I’ll call you about it. That okay?”
“Yeah, ‘course it is. Bye.” Shouta affirms.
“Bye.”
The call clicks off, the beep beep beep in his ear as it disconnects. He tosses his phone onto the coffee table before he forces himself to sit up again. He feels heavier than normal but that’s probably due to all the goddamn stress he’s experiencing. He’s too young for this.
If Hizashi could see him he’d laugh his ass off, probably force Shouta to use his quirk so he didn’t accidentally shatter every window in the building.
A scratchy meow breaks him out of his thoughts as his cat comes to twine herself around his ankles. He huffs a bit before leaning down to pick her up.
Shouta brought her home right at the end of a shift about 2 years ago. He was walking back to his apartment when he heard the clatter and clang of something in a nearby alley and his hero instincts kicked in almost immediately, making him scope it out.
The noise led him to a, then scrawny now rather fat, little cat. Her fur was mainly a light brown colour, she had a few darker spots splattered over her torso. She screamed and hissed upon seeing him but as soon as he crouched down and held out his hand it was like a switch flipped.
Ever since he’s had her, the loud little thing that he lovingly named Coffee Bean thanks to her fur colourings. Nicknamed Bean for short. He adores her.
It also maybe strokes his ego how she’s extremely temperamental and picky when it comes to people, despite having her for two years and his friends raiding his apartment whenever they please she still only likes him . Hell of a confidence booster when an animal picks you over everyone else.
The amount of times she’s scratched and clawed at Nemuri and Hizashi is climbing to the higher end of the 100s but he likes to think it’s their fault, maybe they shouldn’t bother her every time they’re over. It’s simply karma.
Getting up, he walks into the kitchen, Coffee Bean still curled in his arms. Shouta sets her down by her food bowl and water fountain before he goes to the cabinet and fishes out a scoop of dry food and a can of wet food.
Maybe he spoils her. That’s his business.
When she’s finally happily eating he wanders over to the fridge, looking through it before shutting it as he realises he doesn’t have the energy to make anything.
He walks out of the kitchen, saying goodnight to Coffee Bean with a gentle pat to her head before he makes his way down the hall and into his bedroom. He leaves the door open a crack, just in case she wants to come in later.
Shouta struggles out of his hero costume and switches it out with some joggers and a loose t-shirt. Then flops uselessly onto his bed, not even bothering to pull the blanket over himself.
He’s passed out as soon as he hits the pillow.
Shouta’s in the middle of lecturing a class of 6 when he gets the call the next day. The sound ringing from his desk drawer as he grumbles about being interrupted.
He dismisses his students to a quiet study hall before he exits the room and goes into the hallway, leaning against the wall opposite his classroom.
The line crackles in his ear.
“Hey, Aizawa.”
“Tsukauchi.” He says in lieu of a greeting, “Is this about the kid?”
“Yeah. I found stuff on him, it’s mostly just the basics. Kid’s school record is a little odd, though.”
“Okay… what all did you find?”
“Well. His full name is Midoriya Izuku, he’s 9, currently attends Aldera Primary School, and lives with both his parents according to the school records. It’s marked that his dad is frequently out of town on ‘business’.”
“Hmm. That’s… suspicious considering what I heard yesterday.”
“Yeah. There’s not a lot on the mother but she’s present sometimes, came to the school to pick him up a few times.”
“You mentioned his school records being weird?”
Tsukauchi goes quiet for a moment, Shouta can hear papers shuffling around and what sounds like a computer mouse clicking.
“Yeah. Apparently your kid’s a troublesome one.” Shouta squints his eyes at the wording but doesn’t say anything to refute it, the words your kid ringing in his ears, “Has a bunch of misconducts for starting fights and taunting kids. What’s weird though is how they’re all worded, like they had to heavily modify it and vague the details to make it pass in the system.”
“That’s concerning. He didn’t seem like a kid to get in fights, he was pretty skittish. Not to mention easily excitable. It was obvious he kept to himself, the only thing that showed he spoke to anyone was some photos in his room with a blond kid around his age.”
“I’ll look into it a little more then. Is there anything else you want me to check?”
A small light goes off in Shouta’s head. “Oh, wait. The fights and misconducts, could it be related to his quirk?” Shouta’s well aware how some quirks cause emotional drawbacks for kids, making them tired, easily irritable and the like before they truly get a steady grasp on them.
“Most likely.”
Shouta hears the shift in Tsukauchi’s voice, there’s way more to this than Shouta’s probably prepared for. He still asks.
“How so? What’s his quirk?”
Tsukauchi stays quiet, Shouta can feel the weight of it even over the phone.
“Aizawa… he doesn’t have one. Kid’s quirkless.”
And oh doesn’t that just make so much fucking sense. The neglect and abuse from his parents, the shunning from his peers, the odd documentation claiming he started or provoked the fights.
Being an underground hero has made him well aware of the grievances the world causes quirkless people. He’s talked down several from a ledge before, others get caught for petty theft because, if they make it to adulthood, it’s hard to come across a job. The world isn’t kind to them in the slightest.
“Fuck.” Shouta breathes out.
“Yeah.” There's more clicking before the detective speaks again, “Notes from past parent teacher conferences state the kid’s mostly a loner, that he ‘needs to involve himself with his peers more’ and ‘needs to improve if he wants to go anywhere’ which is just the right amount of fucked up.”
“We’re gonna have to check out this school aren’t we?” Shouta asks, barely concealing the headache all this information is giving him.
“Yeah, we're probably gonna have to get Nedzu in on it. A lot of this just isn’t right, everything is pointing to blatant quirk discrimination but there’s no real evidence of it so I’m not sure what we could do.”
“Goddamn it. Okay. I’ll talk to him. Thanks for this.”
“Of course, let me know if anything changes or you need something else.”
“I will. See you later.”
“Bye.”
Shouta drops his arms limply to his sides as he leans the back of his head against the wall, staring at the pristine white ceiling of Yuuei. This kid is gonna make him go grey at 24 fucking years old.
He gathers himself before he goes back in his classroom but his mind is still playing everything he just learned about the kid on repeat.
Midoriya Izuku. 9. Quirkless. With parents and peers that obviously didn’t like him. God.
The rest of the day passes by in a blur, all he can think about is what to do next. The kid hasn’t texted him since the little thank u text. He has no idea just where the kid decided to go because he just had to listen to the instinct in his brain that told him to trust the kid.
Therefore, obviously, his next move is to find the kid again. But how? Where? Meander around that neighbourhood until he gets lucky?
This was so unnecessarily complicated. Why didn’t he just make the kid come with him when he realised something was wrong?
The next time he really registers his surroundings, he’s sitting on the couch in the teacher’s lounge staring blankly ahead of himself like the wall will give him all the answers he needs.
His peace is ruined when the door swings open and in walks the loudest blond he’s ever met. As soon as Hizashi spots him he skips over and plops down next to Shouta.
“Hey, Sho! What’s that face for?” Hizashi asks, immediately meddling in his business.
“I’m dealing with something that happened on patrol last night.”
Hizashi lights up and settles himself further into the couch, like he’s getting ready for a story. Shouta drops his head into his hands because there’s no way he’s getting out of this, is there?
“What happened?! Something exciting?”
“If you count becoming emotionally invested in a kid I don’t even know as exciting then yeah, sure was exciting.” He mumbles into his hands, almost hoping Hizashi can’t hear it and drops it.
“You? Becoming emotionally invested in a kid?!”
Shouta breathes a heavy exhale through his nose, “Yes.”
“How cool was this kid to get you, of all people, interested?”
“Don’t know. Just… felt it. I don’t know.” Shouta can hear his own irritation leaking into his voice. He really doesn’t know why he feels so strongly about this kid but there’s just something there. It’s making a little voice in the back of his head scream over and over again that that’s his kid and he needs to protect Izuku.
What the fuck, honestly.
Apparently the annoyed tone is enough to make Hizashi take mercy and drop the conversation, moving on to easier topics like if he’s prepared his next lesson already, if he has any plans this weekend. Maybe this loud blond of a best friend of his wasn’t so bad. He’d never admit that though, absolutely not.
Who knows how loud Hizashi would get if Shouta admitted to something like that… the thought almost makes Shouta shiver.
The bell sounds and Shouta gets up to walk his way back to his classroom. The day passes and Shouta barely notices.
When he leaves for his patrol that night he heads out earlier than usual, much earlier than usual, he’s sacrificing his afternoon nap for this.
Making his way into the police station he gets several nods of acknowledgement as he makes his way to Tsukauchi’s office. He stopped for coffee on the way here, an offer of thanks and apology for all he’s about to make the detective do.
He has a kid to find. And a school to investigate.
The two of them pour over countless pages to try to find where or who the kid would go to. There’s nothing. All extended family are either dead, unlisted, or live out of the country and haven’t had contact in years. There’s no records alluding to the kid having any friends. It’s a dead end and Shouta is losing it.
Honestly so is Tsukauchi who, merely by association, has started caring about and worrying for this kid he’s never even met. All the things they’ve read and gone over to try and find anything has just revealed more and more.
Hospital records that show endless injuries, minor and major. Instances of kids “accidentally” using their quirks on the kid. There’s even a note denying the poor kid treatment on certain illnesses simply because he’s quirkless and the hospital doesn’t want to waste supplies on him.
It’s horrendous. Shouta’s silently fuming where he sits in the detective’s office. He’s on his third cup on coffee and it’s not even helping at this point.
Maybe he’s finally developing a caffeine immunity, how unfortunate.
“Aizawa, you need to leave for patrol.”
“Fuck.” Shouta groans but stands up nonetheless.
Tsukauchi nods in sympathy because damn they got nowhere in this, all they’ve got is a simmering indignance and anger directed at any and everyone that’s ever wronged this kid.
“Maybe you’ll see him on patrol. He’s probably around that area still… hopefully.”
Shouta grunts as he gathers his things, shoving his phone into his pocket and downing the last of his coffee before throwing away the cup.
The two exchange goodbyes along with wishes of good luck. Shouta leaves with a determination in his veins he hasn’t felt in a long time.
Shouta doesn’t see the kid that night. Or the next.
He doesn’t see the kid again until a whole two weeks later.