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Eraserhead really was too suspicious for his own good.
He had reason to be, Izuku supposes. He is an Underground Hero, after all, and being discerning is one of the most important skills in their skillset. It was probably just second nature to him now. Still, it didn’t make what he was trying to do any easier.
So he might be a bit worried about the hero he saved. What of it?
After he ran away from Eraser last time, he made sure to follow him in mouse form to make sure he went to the hospital. Izuku knew he had a habit of avoiding the hospital unless things were serious; thankfully he considered his concussion serious enough to head straight to the nearest one after stumbling out of the alley.
(And if Eraser thinking he hallucinated a panther standing over him only helped him come to the conclusion that he needed medical attention, well, that could only be a good thing, couldn’t it?)
He figured the hero would write it off as being a figment of his imagination after a night’s sleep (if he ever slept; he seemed to have just as bad insomnia as Izuku did. Granted, his insomnia was from taking the form of nocturnal animals so often but still.) but it seems he was wrong. The next time he saw Eraser on patrol (a few days later, thankfully) he seemed to be glancing at every shadow as if it were hiding something.
Hiding a panther, maybe.
He made sure to stay in cat form whenever he was near the hero, even though he had been trying to pick up the slack when Eraser was home resting. He couldn’t do much helping people as a cat, although there was a boy with purple hair that was crying in an alley that he cuddled with a bit. You’d be surprised at how much snuggling a cat could make someone feel better, or at least keep them from feeling worse. Eventually the boy had to go home though, and the actual criminals he ran into unfortunately couldn’t be cuddled away.
He had long since memorized Eraser’s patrol route though, so it was easy to avoid him when he wasn’t keeping an eye on him. He wasn’t helping people every night, that was a quick way to get burnt out and sleep for three days straight, so he didn’t need to worry about Eraser’s suspicion on nights when he was busy.
Busy was the wrong word for it; it was more like he had an appointment to keep.
In the daytime he stayed out of sight, holed up in his den (when did he start calling it that? Maybe he took on canine forms too often.) and prayed his old laptop would run for another day while he worked on his online school work. The abandoned apartment complex he had made his den in was thankfully close enough to a cafe that he could use their wifi without having to leave the safety of being alone. It was the only time he could risk being human.
Once the sun started setting and he finished his schoolwork, he shifted to his cat form and climbed out his window to head over to the gym near where he lived. He had found out through trial and error that it was the most empty around that time of day, so he squeezed in through a mouse-sized hole in the locker room and took advantage of their showers whenever he could. He wasn’t always lucky enough to have shampoo or conditioner or soap, but he kept clean as best he could.
Usually, by the time he finished it was dark enough to start his ‘patrol’, even though he hesitated to call it that. He didn’t really consider himself a vigilante even though, by legal definition, that’s exactly what he was. But it’s not like anyone would ever know that, right? All people saw when they saw him was a particularly helpful animal, usually a big dog that scared away bad people and let the victim pet him for a bit to help them calm down and then went on his way.
He was just a stray.
Regardless of what he called it, that was what he usually did with his nights. For some reason he didn’t seem to need as much sleep as others did, so he used his extra time at night to help people or stalk follow Eraser or any other Underground he might come across and commit observations to memory to write down later. Sometimes he misses his notebooks, the childish scribblings he made in the margins back when he was small enough to write entries in crayon but…but he didn’t have those anymore. His hero analysis would have to be kept on his laptop for now (in encrypted, coded files of course.)
That was how his nights usually went. But Thursday nights weren’t his usual nights.
Thursday nights were when he shifted into his tree sparrow form and took to the skies, flying out of the dirty streets of the lower urban district and heading away, to where the office buildings slowly shrunk to suburban houses, where cramped streets turned to roundabouts, and alleys became cleaner and smaller. He kept flying until he came across a residential street like any other, where he perched on the fence of a house with a perfect row of trees lining the front.
He landed in the backyard, hopping a bit closer until he could see through the sliding backdoor. He usually arrived right around the time Auntie Mitsuki was making dinner, one of the rare times she looked entirely peaceful. Unless Kacchan was helping her cook that night, in which case they would both be making snide remarks and laughing at each other just a bit too loud. He knew Uncle Masaru would be somewhere nearby, either on the couch or working at the kitchen table, shaking his head fondly even as he half-heartedly shushed them. He was thankful for their loudness, though, since it let him hear the sound of the only family he had left even all the way in the backyard, only outside looking in.
He felt that same longing that he did whenever he visited the Bakugous. That burning desire to turn human and fling the door open, say “I’m here! I’m alive! Please help me, I don’t want to be alone anymore!” that he had to viciously beat back. The Bakugou’s would welcome him with open arms, he knew, and Kacchan would yell at him for staying away for so long even as he hugged him so tight he would barely be able to breathe. Uncle would be a mess of tears and gratitude while Auntie would fuss over him, piling him with food and blankets even if he didn’t need them. He would be warm and wanted and loved.
But he wouldn’t be safe. And neither would they.
So he stayed a little tree sparrow, letting out a mournful coo as Auntie cuffed Kacchan over the head for some stupid remark but turned it into running her fingers through his hair, and even though he could see it annoyed him the other boy didn’t make her stop. He shook his feathers, gathering courage and steeling himself not to give in to his desires all in one, and shifted to his cat form to go and scratch at the door.
Maybe he couldn’t live with them or even let them know he was alive, but this…he could have this. He could have this little bit of happiness.
Uncle was the first to notice him, like usual, and stood up with a soft smile to go pull the door open for him. “Chikage’s back.” He called out to the other two, somehow able to speak over their yelling without raising his voice. He rubbed up against Masaru’s legs at the name, hoping for pets that the man was only too happy to give. Chikage, they’d started calling him. Little shadow for the way his fur was black and he always seemed to sneak up on them when approaching the back door. Izuku was thankful that he only carried his eye color over to his animal forms and not his hair color. A cat with green eyes was nothing to look twice at, but a green cat might get him some unwanted attention.
“Ah, there’s the little brat!” Mitsuki called, though he’d known her long enough to know that it was a term of affection. She walked over and scooped him up into her arms, and he couldn’t help but nuzzle into her neck with a happy purr. It was the closest thing he could get to a hug from his Auntie nowadays, so took full advantage while he could, rubbing his face on her neck and gently butting against her chin.
“Little shit only comes around for free food.” Kacchan grumbled from the stove, but Izuku could see the way his mouth ticked up at the corner from his appearance. Mitsuki cuddled with him for a moment more before depositing him on top of the table. They all knew that he wouldn’t make a mess at this point, usually assuming that he was a stray that came around for food and company. They had tried to make him stay at one point, tempting him with a cat bed and a few toys, and trust him it was tempting, but he always left after dinner.
It was dangerous enough that he was here in the first place. If his father ever found out he survived…
He shook his head, trying his best to banish the thought by crawling into Masaru’s lap and curling up there. He chuckled, running a hand over Izuku’s fur and continuing to type with his other hand. There was no point dwelling on bad things when he was enjoying his favorite part of the week.
He dozed on Masaru’s lap until Kacchan called that dinner was ready, bringing bowls of curry over with his mom’s help. He perked up when he saw the smaller bowl that Kacchan was carrying with him, mouth already watering at the thought of all that spicy goodness waiting for him.
He couldn’t stop himself from jumping off of Masaru’s lap and into his son’s, rushing to get his dose of Kacchan cuddles as quickly as he could. The blond scoffed at him but pointedly didn’t push him off, causing his parents to let out mocking coos at the two of them. “I swear he likes you the most.” Masaru said, innocently digging into his food when Kacchan glared at him.
Kacchan didn’t snuggle him like Auntie did, but he did give him a quick pet down his back and a scratch behind the ears so he counted it as a win. He set the smaller bowl down on the empty chair next to him, gently picking Izuku up and putting him in front of it. “There, damn cat.” He grumbled, giving him one more quick pat before he turned back to his own food.
He didn’t hesitate to dig in, no doubt smearing sauce and rice all over his face, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Kacchan’s cooking was always the best, and he looked forward to it every week, especially when he usually had to dig out leftovers from restaurants from their dumpsters.
It hadn’t really been a conscious decision to start visiting the Bakugou’s, but after…after, when he was still struggling with his newfound quirk and had trouble shifting between forms, he had been stumbling around in his cat form and trying to adjust to walking on four legs and he somehow found himself at the Bakugou residence.
He must’ve arrived on pure muscle memory because he knew as much as he wanted to run inside (after he figured out how to turn back into a human) and throw himself into their arms and sob, he couldn’t. The Bakugou house is the first place he would look for him. He couldn’t put them in danger.
But he was shaking and hungry, and so scared of a big world that had just gotten ten times bigger, so he scratched at their door and did his best attempt at a meow with his new lungs. And even though he was sure they wouldn’t, the Bakugou’s let this strange, shivering cat into their house and fed it, petted it, and let it curl up in front of their fireplace to dry its mysteriously damp fur.
He wanted to stay the night. He wanted to stay forever, but he knew he couldn’t. He was lucky that one of them had left the window cracked once they all went to bed, just big enough for him to slip out, and he took to the streets with a promise to himself that he wouldn’t come back and put his only family left in danger. He couldn’t keep it, of course, his new life was cold and lonely and he just missed them so much, so he ended up returning the following week, and the week after that, and the week after that, until it was routine.
He finished his curry quietly and did his best not to even look at the shrine set up in the corner of the living room, with two picture frames lovingly displayed in its center.
Later, he’d have to leave again. Later, he’d have to slip back out the door, away from warmth and family and love, and head back to the dark streets and dirty alleys that he had to call home these days. Later, he’d have to go back to being some random stray that most people don’t even notice, all alone in a big world that hadn’t gotten any smaller in the years he’d been forced to live in it.
For now, he let his chuckling Auntie wipe the sauce off his face and curled into Kacchan’s lap, purring at the warm hand that stroked down his back. He felt the stinging of tears in his eyes and pushed them away until later, for when he turned human again in a dusty old apartment and cried himself to sleep, mourning for a little boy who died years ago.