Chapter Text
It had been a quiet night.
He’d just arrested a disgusting rapist and set free a homeless man who was trying to steal a bottle of water from a convenience store.
“Small country, little crime.” Shota whispered to himself as the first rays of sun peeked into the sky. “Another patrol finished.”
Shota slid out the window into the worn trailer he called home, trying not to wake any of the sleeping children. Rody would make his morning miserable if that happened.
"Coming back so late, hero?" The light came on, illuminating the place much more. "I find it hypocritical of you. You always come to tell me that I need to take a break, but you overexert yourself every day and throw away your scolding. Too bad."
Rody was hunched over on the worn couch, reading his notes for his aviation class and underlining something in the book he had borrowed from the library. He shouldn’t use highlighters or pens on it.
Shota grunted, tossing his goggles and capture scarf to the floor as he shuffled to the other couch. "You are an underage brat who works doing illegal favors in a bar for a minimal amount of money while studying to be a pilot. You need to keep your record clean if you want to make it. I’m over 30 years old. I graduated from one of the best schools in Japan, and am now working as an underground hero with an international license for an agency. No comparison here."
Rody snorted but didn't argue against what Shota said, instead he put his head between his knees as he ran his hands through his messy ponytail. "You're one to talk about responsibility, considering how careless you are when it comes to yourself."
Shota rolled his eyes. "I'm not worth taking care of. You three," he pointed to Rody and the closed door that leads to where Roro and Lala sleep, "are."
Rody ignored that comment and got up from the couch. "Anything, hero." He said as he craned his neck and stretched it out.
The brat passed by Shota's side, heading towards the makeshift kitchen, but not before tapping him on the face. "Just try not to get killed."
"No promises." Shota hummed sleepily as he slowly closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
He woke up to a small finger poking his face and a sharp voice calling his name.
"Mr. Aizawa?" The voice repeated as a thin finger continued to touch his cheek.
"Do you think he's dead?" A second lower voice asked and Shota felt a strand of his hair being lifted and pulled.
Roro was too smart to believe that.
Shota didn't want to get up. He was tired and knew that only two hours had passed since his arrival. He had thirty more minutes left before he had to take Roro and Lala to school.
"Roro!" Lala shrieked, sounding terrified.
It's only thirty more minutes. Come on, Lala, don't believe your idiot brother.
Shota heard a slap and felt his hair being pulled free.
"Lala!" Roro yelled back. "Rody said dead people look like this!"
Don’t you dare...
Shota knew that when he slept, he was unperturbed. At UA, he could sleep through Yamada's impromptu karaoke, Oboro's rants about how good Kayama looked in the unflattering PE uniform, or Kayama's passionate speeches about youth, even though they were only a year apart.
"And what are dead people supposed to look like?!" Lala's voice asked, sounding disturbed.
"Ugly and pale as if they had come out of the tombs!" Roro replied.
Do I really look that bad?
"Plus they’re as stiff as statues!" The boy added, patting Shota on the back to corroborate his point. "See?! Stiff as death! Besides, didn't Rody once say that Mr. Aizawa was going to die of exhaustion one day?"
Shitty brat-
He heard high-pitched sobs.
No Please. Don’t-
"Mr. Aizawa!" Lala's scream and cry echoed through the room.
Shota tried to get up but Lala threw herself at him, crushing him in a hug and leaving him breathless.
This little girl has strength...
"Please don't die!" She sobbed loudly, squeezing him even tighter. Out of the corner of his eye, Shota could see Roro desperately trying to calm her down while he pulled her back so she would stop squeezing the man's waist. "I promise I'll stop using your scarf to pretend to be Spiderman! I'll even stop taking from those weird jello packets you keep hidden with your stuff!"
So there are my unbalanced investments...
"Lala! You're killing him!" Roro yelled, pulling her back, as he watched Shota gasping for air.
Shota knew that he wasn't dying, but he wanted to let Roro suffer more.
His alarm sounded at that moment.
Lala stopped whimpering, Roro released Lala and Shota grunted.
"Are you going to keep it up or are you ready for me to drive you to school?" Shota said, looking at the shocked faces of the children. None of them moved. Shota sighed heavily. "To the door. Now."
Lala aggressively wiped away her tears as she fixed her hair. On the other hand, Roro only needed to adjust his shirt.
"Yes, sir!" They both exclaimed in unison and ran towards the door.
Shota nodded, sensing that it was going to be a long day.
He had come to Otheon about ten years ago, wanting to put his past in Japan behind him, and joined a hero agency with an international license. It was against his idea of being an independent hero, but the agency gave him certain liberties considering his large number of successful missions.
If Shirakumo saw where he was at that moment, he would have said: I told you. For that, he was deeply grateful that he hadn't heard from Yamada since he left Japan because that blond idiot would have reminded him of Shirakumo's words, and after that, he would begin laughing because the stoic Shota Aizawa was living with three children in a trailer in a small country as a member from an agency.
Shota was fine with his life. He didn't have a cat of his own, but the stray cats outnumbered them and they always let him come over to pet them. Lala had said that he was Snow White with alley cats and a tramp look. Shota took it as a compliment.
Anyway, life was not the best, but not the worst either. He could be in Japan teaching at UA if he had listened to Kayama and Yamada and, if he was honest, Shota's limited patience was aimed at preventing Rody from dying due to his own stupid decisions.
But, reading the file given to him by his boss, Shota knew that this was a mission that he wasn’t prepared for at all.
"You want me to create a fake family and try to get into Humarise?" Shota said, incredulous at the possibility that he, of all the heroes, was the one they designated to go undercover.
He did well as an undercover hero. In the early years of his career in Japan, he succeeded at pretending to be anything from clown to Makoto Tsukauchi's fiance, but he had never had to pretend to be a caring husband and loving father.
"You are the best we have in the field." The man got up from his chair to take one of the cigarettes from one of his desk drawers. He saw Shota's sullen look and offered him one.
Shota shook his head. It took him a long time to get out of that addiction, he was not going to take it up again.
"And the spies you sent there a month ago?" Shota asked, trying to get out of the mission.
The man's countenance turned somber. "We received calls from the governments of Japan, the United States, Egypt, France, and other countries. They found their bodies this weekend."
That's unfortunate.
"And you want to send me?" Shota raised an eyebrow, he knew it was a suicide mission.
The man shrugged, giving him a pitying look that only made Shota's nerves stand on end. "You have a contract with us. Your license is under the agency's rules. If you don’t accept this mission, we’ll revoke your license and you will not be able to perform heroics in Otheon."
It was completely rational and logical to make such threats against an employee who refused to follow orders. It was a matter of time until they gave him a mission that he would not want to carry out and they brought his international license to the table as bait.
Shota knew that it was useless to discuss that. He would only get a worse threat.
The boss realized that he had put the hero between a rock and a hard place. So he flashed a smug smile as he pulled a large file from his desk and handed it to Shota.
"I appreciate your cooperation."
"You'll have to leave if you accept that." Rody pointed, putting his arms against his chest and looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "I like you, hero. I wouldn't have accepted having you so close to Lala and Roro without knowing how trustworthy you are. But you know I can't expose them to Humarise again. You know the whole story."
The rejection that the Soul family suffered after the father was identified as a collaborator of Humarise left the children in the public eye to be judged and disowned, abandoned on the streets, penniless and left Rody in charge.
He and Shota had met under less-than-ideal circumstances. Rody worked at the bar that hosted a criminal Shota needed to catch. When she got caught, she took the boy hostage.
Shota nodded. "I don't have a choice. It's either that or my license is revoked. In addition, I'd be deported because I never gave up my Japanese nationality."
"I told you to but you never listen to the brat." Rody laughed sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Until when do you have to start this mission?"
Shota sighed heavily. "Next week."
Rody hummed lightly and pushed his books off the table. "Then we'll see how this works." He took out a box and handed some papers to Shota. "Don’t make me regret it."
Property papers.
"This is an apartment that my father gave me when I was 6 years old," Rody said quietly, pointing to the written address. "For obvious reasons, we don't use it, so I'm giving it to you in exchange for, once you finish the mission, you giving me a generous amount of money for my siblings' university funds."
Shota blinked slowly.
"Wouldn't you prefer money for yourself?" He asked. "You have two years of aviation school left."
Rody shook his head. "I'll have to give it up. My siblings are my priority and I have to take care of them if I don't have your support anymore."
"I can't accept that." Shota insisted and watched as the brat's eyes snap open. "So I'll tell you what we're going to do." He grasped the table tightly, and Rody understood that he hadn't finished speaking. "Put your apartment up for auction, I'm going to buy it under a false name, and then I'll donate it to you anonymously once I finish the mission."
The boy let out a dry laugh. "I'd prefer if you kept it. I don't think we'd be welcome in such a posh neighborhood after what our father did."
"That's why I'll clear your names." Shota knew that he shouldn't promise things. A hero just does his job. But he was not going to leave those kids out on the street after all they'd done for him. Rody remained thoughtful. No reaction on his face. On the other hand, Pino was passed out from shock on the table. "I'll send you money anonymously and you'll see what you spend it on. But I need you to promise me you won't drop out of school and you won't go back to those illegal errands."
Pino showed no signs of waking up but Rody couldn't hide much of his emotions, as tears fell from his eyes and he shook his head. "You won't take no for an answer, hero." The boy admitted the obvious. "It remains for me to accept your agreement. I trust you."
It was tough for Rody to trust people. Shota was like that too. But both trusted each other, both knew that the other would do his best to fulfill his part of the bargain.
"I'll try not to let you brats down."