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“So what do you two do now that you don't have to patrol every weekend?” Nemuri asked, looking intently at the married couple.
“Nothing that would interest you, you pervert.” Aizawa said calmly, drinking his coffee. She scoffed playfully and drank her own drink.
“Well, if you're not very busy, I was thinking that maybe we could get together?” she offered. “We used to have so much fun going out.”
“I never had fun.” Aizawa corrected her.
“We'd love to take you out to play, baby.” Hizashi jumped in. Sometimes it was nice having a spouse who could smooth things over. Although Aizawa did wonder if it just gave him a little more freedom to kind of be a jerk sometimes.
Okay, often. Okay, okay, fine. He wasn't even kind of a jerk, he just was a jerk often, and everyone rolled with it. A lot of them even thought it was funny! Shouta hated that, if he was being honest with himself. He liked it when people didn't find him amusing. The only people he worried about really liking him were Hizashi and Izuku. And he was already married to Hizashi, so that was sealed.
“Well then, pick a date!” she clapped her hands together, the cuffs jingling slightly as she did. It was a soft tinkling sound that they had all come to associate with her. Sort of like a bell on a cat.
“We'd love to, but our weekends are otherwise occupied.” Hizashi shook his head. “Sorry, doll, rain check that?” she pouted for a moment.
“You've been together for so long, surely you can't have that much fun doing married people things.”
“Hey! Married people things can still be fun.” Hizashi protested. Shouta had no input. He liked doing boring married people things, especially when they involved a certain green haired little bunny. He only finished his coffee.
“Oh yeah, like what?” she raised an eyebrow.
“Watching television, making dinner, eating together, reading stories--.” he ticked off on his fingers. Shouta glared at him. Curse Hizashi and his big, stupid, beautiful mouth.
“Wait, wait, do you read stories to each other?” she looked between them, caught between surprise and mirth.
“My eyes hurt. He means that he reads to me at night.” Shouta corrected. Was it just him, or did Nemuri seem to wilt a little bit.
“That makes sense.” she nodded. “Well, what if I came over and you read to me, too? And uh, maybe someone else?”
“Did you get a boyfriend?” Hizashi leaned in close. “Dish, girl! I wanna know all the deets about that!”
“You are an embarrassment.” Shouta sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“He is NOT a boyfriend!” she looked scandalized. “I mean, uh, I don't have anyone or anything. Never mind, forget I said anything.” she scrambled to get away from them. Now that was interesting. She was the R-Rated Hero. She never had any problems talking about anything of a sexual nature.
“Not so fast,” the scarf wrapped around her and pinned her down in her chair. “If you don't say, he's going to bother me for the next two weeks about it. You started this mess, Nemuri, so you can finish it.” she hesitated and squirmed a bit, and instantly Shouta felt bad. She was really uncomfortable, not just trying to play coy.
“Well, you are teachers here. You have to swear to me that you're not going to breathe a word to another soul.” she warned.
“We might have to if you say what I think you're gonna say.” Hizashi blinked, peering over the edge of his glasses at her.
“No! Not that, that is sick and horrible, and I will murder anyone who touches any of these kids like that. Especially mine.”
“Yours?” both men said, now hanging onto her every word. They hadn't known that she had a kid, and if she had, they wouldn't have anticipated the child being old enough to be at UA.
“He's only mine sometimes.” she rubbed her face with her hands. “You know Kaminari? He's in your homeroom, Shouta.”
“Of course,” the one with the electric quirk. It was hard for him to balance using his quirk appropriately, but not too much that he would dumbify himself and walk around like an idiot for a few hours.
“He's had some problems.” she sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “He's ah, you know the side effects of his quirk. He's not just walking around like a dumbass. He's also kind of a little kid for a few hours afterwards.”
“A little kid.” Shouta repeated.
“I know, I know! It's weird. But I found him one day wandering around outside, and he was scared and upset and he wasn't sure where he was. And it was like he was just a baby. I know all of these students are kids, but it was moreso with him.”
“So what did you do?” Hizashi asked.
“I wanted to take him to Recovery Girl, but he freaked out, sobbing and begging me not to. That was way beyond what would be acceptable for a teenager to do. So I took him to my apartment to calm down. And he ended up snuggling in my lap. And at first it was kinda weird...” she trailed off, looking down at her hands flat on the table.
“But then he'd just show up sometimes, usually after he'd over exerted himself. He just needed me, you know? So I would bring him in, feed him, get him to sleep on my couch. And then I found myself doing things like buying pajamas for him, with that stupid electric mouse that he likes. He seemed to be benefiting from it, and me too.”
“Oohhhh,” Hizashi exhaled. He and Shouta had a long, silent discussion while she stared at the table.
“He might not be the only student in this school who is like that.”
“Really?” her head shot up. “Who?”
“Izuku,” Shouta said. “Ever since we assumed guardianship. At least once a week he stays with us, usually on the weekends, and he goes down in his headspace.”
“I never would have guessed.” she looked shocked.
“He hides it well.” Shouta said thoughtfully. Now that he really considered Denki, it made sense. The childlike glee he had about things. The mini tantrums he had. The way that he played with Ojiro's tail like he just needed something to do with his hands. He was always secretly amused that Ojiro just tolerated it. He had previously written it off to an ADHD thing maybe, but being little like Izuku...
“Well,” Nemuri looked at them. “What would you think about a play date?”
“A play date.” Shouta repeated.
“I think it would be good for them. I don't know about Izuku, but Denki is always worried about people finding out and thinking there's something wrong with him. If he sees one of his classmates, especially if it's Izuku, maybe he'll be more okay with it.”
“I can pick up what you're putting down.” Hizashi hummed. “But we can't make them be in any particular headspace. If they don't want to, then they don't want to.”
“Then they could just hang out and study, couldn't they?”
“We can try it.” Shouta said slowly. “We could at least ask them how they feel about it.”
***
“I don't think I want any little friends.” Izuku's face was bright red.
“Why not?” Shouta asked. He was happy to respect the decision, but that didn't mean he wasn't curious.
“Because what if we're little in different ways? What if it makes them look at me differently? What if they make fun of me? I've been made fun of a lot, and I can handle it. But not for this, Daddy, not for this.” he looked at him with pleading eyes.
“I understand.” he reached for the boy, not shocked that he was slipping during this conversation. He rocked them back and forth a bit. “You don't have to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, you know that.”
“We just wanted to offer you the option, little listener.” Hizashi offered. Izuku looked like he would very much like to crawl into Shouta's skin. He sighed and bit down on his lower lip thoughtfully.
“If I do it and hate it, we never have to do it again, right?”
“Never ever,” Hizashi agreed. “Cross my heart.” he made the exaggerated gesture over his chest.
“Then we can try.”
“So brave,” Shouta praised quietly. “Such a brave little bunny. I know it's hard.”
He preened at the praise and accepted the pacifier offered to him.
The next morning, he was fed breakfast and then put in his bunny sweater, which always made him feel small. He was parked on the floor with his toy box dragged out. It was disguised as any other hinged trunk when he wasn't small, with a few decorative bits and pieces on it. It might have held blankets or anything else. But really, it held all his blocks and his big legos and a few stuffed animals and his action figures.
He had just begun to pull out some blocks when the door opened. Midnight was standing there, her hair in a high ponytail, wearing an only sweatshirt and some jeans. There was someone hunched behind her, clearly trying to hide.
“Hello! Thank you for having us!” she stepped in, hauling the person behind her. Zuzu gaped. It was Denki! Denki standing there in a Pikachu shirt and overalls, not looking anyone in the face.
“Take off your shoes, lovey.”
Denki took off the Velcro shoes. He spotted Izuku, his face going pink. Zuzu only tipped his head to the side and then patted the floor next to him. Hizashi and Nemuri obviously wanted to coo out loud at that, but wisely kept their tongues. Best to let the
littles do things on their own, as long as it was safe.
“I got blocks,” Zuzu informed him. Denki nodded. “Wanna build a city? And then All Might can fight the bad guys!” Denki nodded more enthusiastically. He dug into the box with Zuzu, sitting criss cross on the floor and helping build a city with the blocks.
“Well, I'm shocked.” Hizashi murmured. “This is not the melody I thought they'd be playing.”
“They're enjoying themselves.” Nemuri marveled.
“Maybe this is good for them.” Shouta sipped his coffee, watching his baby make All Might swoop around, bash into the small stuffed monkey he and Denki had decided would be the villain for some reason. The monkey did have a strange smirk embroidered onto his face.
They played for the better part of two hours while the adults talked or graded papers. Shouta half listened, enjoying when things had progressed to the Monkey being the evil mastermind to some terrible cult on the island. But both boys had begun to yawn and rub their eyes at that point.
“Looks like someone is ready to catch some mid morning Z's.” Hizashi said quietly. “Two someones even.”
“And then I gotta get lunch into that one and get him started on his homework.” Nemuri rose up. “Lovey, help Zuzu put all the toys away please.”
“Awww, Night-Night! Can't we have fifteen more minutes?” he whined.
“Not this time. But maybe we'll be invited back if you can show Aizawa and Yamada that you respect their space and will clean up nicely.” for his part, Zuzu was already cleaning up. Denki sighed and helped. He let Nemuri help him back into his shoes and accepted the hug from his little friend, and his thanks for coming to play that morning.
“Zuzu, why don't we go and have a little snooze?” Hizashi sing-songed. The baby rubbed his eyes and put his arms up. They had sort of been expecting him to protest, claim that he wasn't tired and didn't need it. But it seemed that spending the morning with another little kid was enough to get his energy out. Hizashi gave in like always, picking him up and settling him on his hip, carrying him to their room. His jeans were taken off, and he was allowed to keep his beloved sweater on like always.
“Did you have fun with your friend?” Shouta asked, coming in, too. He was never one to turn down a nap. Zuzu nodded sleepily.
“Good,” he smiled. “Maybe we can play again soon.”