Chapter Text
Shota stared down at the small, so small, how can anyone be that small, girl laying in the hospital bed. Her injuries were slowly healing with help from Recovery Girl and the doctors, but that was leaving her in essentially a coma. All his students had thankfully healed fast and were ready to go back to school, he still had his arm in a sling though. Recovery Girl didn’t even bother asking him if he wanted it healed, her quirk never worked on him, turns out his insomnia beats out even Recovery Girl.
He wondered what would happen to little Eri. She had no family to go to, most orphanages wouldn’t take someone with such a volatile quirk, and the foster system has gone to shit thanks to no-good heroes trying to get heirs and villains wanting to groom children into doing their bidding. Eri couldn’t end up homeless, he wouldn’t let that happen, but he’s not sure anyone else would feel the same.
Shota felt his head go heavy and fuzzy and realised he was finally crashing, sitting here in Eri’s room at 2 in the morning. He resettled against the squeaky plastic chair and let the comfortable blackness of sleep take his mind.
✤✤✤
Shota is shaken awake by Nemuri. He grumbles as he blinks away the sleep, and she smiles down at him, handing him a hot cup of coffee. He drinks it greedily.
“How long were you asleep for?” She whispers, sitting in a seat next to him. He checks his watch.
“8 hours.” He mumbles, Nemuri grins.
“That’s the longest in a while. I’m glad.” They lapse into a warm silence as they sip their coffee’s, both watching Eri sleep soundly.
A doctor comes by at one point, check Eri’s vitals and then quickly leaving.
“Who’s in for me today?” Shota ends up asking. Classes hadn’t started up until all the students were cleared, but Shota still had to stay in the hospital to make sure Eri didn’t accidentally reverse anything.
“Hizashi. He’ll be on your class all week.” Nemuri says. Shota sighs. Hizashi is too soft on the kids, they all think they can get away with whatever they want in his class. “Any idea when she’ll wake up?”
“None. No one knows how extensive her injuries were, so we just have to let Recovery Girl’s quirk run it’s course.”
✤✤✤
Eri wakes up a week and a half later. She’s still very lethargic, but awake and responsive. Shota texts Midoriya as soon as she’s open to visitors, and then settles in the seat he’d claimed as his own. Eri shoots him a few anxious looks, but Shota just reads through the texts he’d ignored throughout his hospital stay.
“Um…” Eri trails off. Shota lifts his head to look at her, and sees shes wringing her hands and chewing on her lip.
“Do you need anything?” He asks softly. She shakes her head. Shota sits up straight. “Do you want to ask me something?” She nods this time, looking down at her sheets. Shota gives her time, letting her collect her thoughts.
“What– What’s your name?” She stutters out, not looking up from her sheets.
“Shota Aizawa.” He answers. He sees her mouth his name, and smiles a little. “You can call me Zawa or Sho if you want.” Shota says. Hizashi used to call him Zawa before Shota let him call him by his first name, and his Dad always called him Sho. He knew they were easy for kids to say, so he usually handed out the nicknames whenever he had to talk to them. She nodded quickly, making her pale blue hair fall over her face. She quickly pushed it back, and Shota got a good look at her arms. They were scarred, poor thing. Shota ran a hand over his own covered arms. He’d gotten tattoos at just 16 to cover his own scars. Hopefully he could do something similar, if less permanent, for her.
“Um… Is Deku coming?” She whispered, Shota nodded.
“Yeah, he’ll be here in around half an hour. What do you want to do til then?” He asked. Eri started wringing her hands again. “We don’t have to do anything, but if you want to, just ask.” He said. She nodded again, and Shota left her to think, scrolling through his phone more to look like he was doing something than actually doing anything on it.
They stayed like that for a few minuets, then Shota heard a stomach growl. He looked up and saw Eri clutching her stomach and blushing.
“Are you okay?” He asks, more worried that she’s hurt than anything else. She nods. “Are you hungry?” He asks. She hesitates before nodding again. “What do you want to eat?” He asks, moving to stand.
“Uh, I don’t– I don’t really know.” She stutters, blushing again. Shota kneels next to her bed.
“Okay. What kind of food do you eat?” Eri thinks for a moment. Shota knows she wasn’t fed properly, but she would’ve died by know if he’d never fed her.
“Sweet.” She whispers. Shota nods, before standing and walking to the door. He hears Eri panic a little behind him.
“Hey, can we get some jello or yoghurt or something? Anything sweet will do.” Shota asks the guard standing outside the room. The man nods and walks away. Shota steps back in and sits next to Eri’s bed again. “The food will be here soon. Do you want to watch something while we wait?” Eri nods again. Shota flicks on the tv and changes it to a kids chanel, letting Eri get invested into it before he pulled out his phone. He sees he’s got a text from Nemuri, he opens it and sees its a video from his apartment, he presses on it and it starts playing quietly.
“Hey, Shota, look at the boys, they miss you!” Nemuri giggles from behind the camera. It pans to Mikey and Sheeran sitting at the front door and meowing at it, and then to Panther and Sabbath pawing at his bedroom door. He’s glad Nemuri is there to take care of his cats, but he wishes more than anything that he could go visit them and make sure they’re all okay.
“What are you watching?” Eri asks. Shota lifts his head.
“A video from my friend. Why do you ask?” He sits up again. Eri shrugs.
“You were smiling. I haven’t seen you smile.” She says. Shota smiles at that, and she blushes a little.
“It’s okay, here, I’ll show you.” He gets up to show her the video. Her eyes go wide when she sees his cats.
“They’re so cute.” She whispers.
“They are. I have more videos of them if you want to see?” Eri starts nodding her head, moving over in her bed and patting one side, inviting him onto the bed.
✤✤✤
They eat fruit yoghurt and watch cat videos until Midoriya gets there. When he does show up, he’s sweaty and puffing and has the worlds biggest smile on his face. Eri lights up and waves at him with both hands.
“Deku! Come see, Zawa is showing me a video of Sheeran!” Eri waves him over. Shota smiles down fondly at her. Midoriya climbs onto the bed and they all end up squished together. Shota shows them the video. It’s of Sheeran falling into a full bubble bath and freaking out with bubbles piled onto his head. Eri giggled loudly, Midoriya watched her with awe, and then smiled up at Shota.
✤✤✤
Eri ends up falling asleep in their arms, watching an old movie Midoriya had said was good. It was from the 2010s, and Shota was surprised that the kid had watched movies from back then.
“I have to go. Tell her I said bye when she wakes up.” Midoriya whispered, slowly retracting himself from Eri’s grip. Shota nodded and Midoriya left. Shota scrolled on his dimmed phone until he felt his eyelids grow heavy.
✤✤✤
“Zawa… Zawa? Are you okay?” Shota heard a panicked voice and felt little hands shaking his shoulders. He woke up quickly, shooting up to make sure there wasn’t any danger, then he found himself with an armful of a crying child. He held her and stroked her hair until he remembered what had happened. He’d fallen asleep in Eri’s hospital bed yesterday. It was dark outside, so it was probably late at night. Eri must have had a nightmare.
“Shh, shh, it’s fine, I’m fine. Everyone is okay.” Shota started rocking her. Her sobs slowly turned into hitched breaths, he kept rocking her until she was calm. “Did you have a bad dream?” He asked, Eri nodded into his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?” He ran his fingers through her hair, gently getting out any knots.
“I was back with father.” She hiccuped. Shota held her tighter, curling himself around her.
“You’re not there, you’re never going back there, I’ll make sure, so will Deku.” He promised, she sniffled again. Shota pulled out his phone and showed her more cat videos until she fell asleep.
✤✤✤
Shota’s first trip out of the hospital was to go shopping for Eri. She was finally getting moved out of the hospital and into UA’s recovery rooms, so she needed clothes. The nurses had given Eri’s measurements and Nedzu had given him more money than he thought could be spent on clothes.
He ended up having to text Hizashi and Nemuri for help.
With their help, he confidently buys a pretty normal closet for a 6 year old girl. He has a little left over money and ends up asking Nedzu if he wants it back.
‘Just buy another outfit with it.’ is Nedzu’s reply. Shota panics a little, Hizashi and Nemuri are both busy now and won’t reply to him if he asks. He looks around the store, looking for some of the stuff he’d already bought when his eyes fall on something he thought he’d never see again.
Oh god.
It looks exactly like his favourite outfit as a child, but for a girl. It even has a frilly skirt.
He’s buying it before he even realises.
✤✤✤
Eri jumps on the bags of clothes as soon as he gets back. The nurses coo at her excitement, remembering that she’d been sad all day because of having to leave the hospital.
Their faces all fall when Eri pulls out the galaxy cat monstrosity Shota had bought.
“Zawa! Look! This one looks like Mikey!” Eri squeals, hopping up and pointing at the cat on the front of the shirt.
The nurses start in on Shota, telling him that he shouldn’t get such ugly clothes for a little girl, but they’re interrupted by Eri begging them to help her put it on. Shota smiles and leaves the room, giving them privacy.
Eri bounds out of the room, bright smile on her face, spinning to make the skirt swoosh.
“Are you ready to go to the school?” Shota asks, squatting down in front of her. She pouts.
“I don’t want to leave. Everyone is so nice.” Eri whispers. She’d been getting more comfortable around him, but she was still so shy. It broke Shota’s heart every time she hesitated to ask for something as simple as a glass of water.
“It’ll be okay. The people here can come visit you, and Deku can see you every day.” Shota says. Eri brightens, but then frowns thoughtfully.
“Will you go away when I go to the school?” She asks, looking scared. Shota sighs.
“Sometimes. You’ll still see me everyday, and you can alway come and get me, but I have to be in classes like Deku, I’m the one that teaches them.” Eri frowns again, tears filling her eyes. The only people she truly cared about were Midoriya, Mirio and Shota himself. He hoped she’d be able to make friends soon, but he wasn’t sure they could even get her into an elementary school.
“But you’re alway with me. What will I do when you’re gone?” She hiccups, Shota brings her into a hug and picks her up.
“Well, you can learn things like Deku and Lemillion, you can play with toys, and you can watch all the cats you want on the tv.” Shota says, slowly walking them to the front.
“But that’s only fun when you’re there!” She complains. Shota smiles despite himself.
“It’ll be fun even without me, and if you really miss me that much, you can ask one of the nurses there to get me.” Eri settles enough at that for Shota to strap her into a carseat. He makes sure she’s okay before moving to the front of the car and getting in the passenger seat.
“Hey, Shota, Hi Eri, how’s you’re day been?” Hizashi greets from the front, keeping on the quiet side. His hair is down and his in a plain shirt and jeans for once.
“It was good.” Eri whispers. Shota signs her answer for Hizashi, knowing there’s no way he heard that.
✤✤✤
Eri has a few problems her first day at UA.
First, she refuses to touch anyone but Shota, Midoriya and Mirio, and everyone keeps trying to shake her hand or pet her head. Shota has to use his capture weapon more than a few times to bat off some hands.
Second, she hates All Might. She doesn’t mind Toshinori, but when he goes buff she screams and runs into Shota’s arms. Shota just starts disabling his quirk when he notices he’s about to do it to save everyone discomfort.
Third, she’s not used to having rooms. When they finally get to where she’s staying, she stares at the couch in the middle of the room and asks if that’s where she’s sleeping. Shota tries his best to tell her that she can sleep wherever she wants, but her bed is in a separate room.
Fourth, she doesn’t want Shota to leave. He feels his heart tearing into pieces as he sees tears run down her face when Nemuri comes over and tells him he has to get to work. He nearly refused and asked Hizashi to cover him again, but then he remembers the bags under Hizashi’s eyes. Instead he pulls Mirio out of class and tells him to cheer her up.
Fifth, she wants to play with Shota. This isn’t really a problem, except for the fact that Shota was halfway across the school listening to Iida yell at someone for doing something. Ectoplasm is sent to get him and cover his class until he gets back. Everyone except Midoriya and Bakugo ask him why he’s being called out. He ignores them and rushes to get to Eri, just to find out that she was bored and wanted to play with him. He stays for over an hour, but he’s silently very disappointed in her (he’s not he missed her but no one will ever know that except for Hizashi who manages to get him drunk enough to spill secrets.)
And finally, Sixth. She can’t sleep alone. Shota gets pulled out of Heights Alliance in the middle of dinner (Sero’s dinner too, he’s the best chef after Bakugo dammit) and has to walk all the way to the school, in the dark, in his pyjamas, while trying to scoff down Sero’s amazing Beef Stroganoff. Eri clutches him all night, Shota wraps himself around her protectively.
✤✤✤
Eri stays in the recovery rooms for two months, learning normal school things as well as having sessions to learn how to control her quirk (which always end with Eri crying in frustration and fear and Shota hugging her and offering to get her a candy apple.) Which is far too long already.
“We must find her a foster home.” Nedzu says, concluding his speech. Before anyone can so much as breathe, Shota is standing and slamming his fists on the table, eye’s dangerously red.
“She’s not going through the system. I’ll die before I let that happen.” Shota grinds out. Everyone is shocked into silence for a moment, before Hizashi and Nemuri both jump up to calm him down. They always dealt with his worse flashbacks, even back in highschool.
“Well, what else can we do? No one is willing to adopt her, we can’t put her–” Vlad King starts, Shota immediately interrupts him with an idea he’d had in his head for months.
“I’ll adopt her.” He says. Everyone is shocked into silence again, and then Nedzu smiles and claps his hands.
“Wonderful!” And that’s the end of that meeting.
✤✤✤
“Eri? Where are you?” Shota calls into the room. Eri immediately climbs over the couch and runs up to him, hugging his legs. “Hi.” He chuckles.
“Zawa! You weren’t supposed to come until dinner!” Eri excitedly proclaims.
“Yeah, I know, but I have something to tell you.”