Chapter Text
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1
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The rain was coming down like it had a personal vendetta against the city, but that was normal in Autumn typhoon season. This wasn't even how bad it could get, and Katsuki had had to work and keep up a sweat in this nonsense.
So just walking home from a well stocked combini isn't that bad, all told. Sure, he's soaked to the bone and has to take a shower as soon as he's back before he can even start cooking - not to mention put the clothes in the washing and wipe the inevitable puddle in the ganken - but Eiji texted how much he wanted hotpot.
What Eiji wanted when he was working in this godawful weather, Eiji got.
He was fantasising about the hot shower he was going to take, making mental plans on which veg to slice first, which patterns to carve into the mushrooms, how he was going to time it perfectly so Eiji would find the house smelling divine and Katsuki waiting for him with a towel, when a sniffle froze him mid-step.
He was a trained pro-hero. It came natural to him to zero in on the disturbance that caught his attention. What he wasn't expecting was to find a hunched up figure in a hoodie much like his, red dulled from how waterlogged it was. He was curled up, face in his knees as his little shoulders shook. The gate was open leading up to the door, the light on the porch glinting in the gloom and reflecting on the puddles in the well kept front.
This was an affluent neighbourhood, much like both he and Eijirou had grown up in. His husband's family owned a chain of gyms - something that had blown Katsuki's mind AND explained a lot. How did you get someone who could afford to buy and bring two expensive suits on holiday on a whim while simultaneously being a man who wore colourful monstrosities and spendex of the cheapest kinds? A gym nut's love-child, that's how - and Katsuki's parents were renowned in the fashion and pro-hero costume work, so they were rich enough. Eiji and he'd started out at the bottom, like most pros did, but he and Eijirou had soon managed to claw their way up. Being the famous "class 1A", as everyone called them well after graduation, hadn't hurt.
So seeing a kid dressed in ratty clothes was not only out of place, it stuck out like a red block in a blue room. The well cared for front, tree leaning upwards in attractive, clearly manicured curves, the moss-less cobbles. And then a shabby child, soppy from the rain, trying to make themself small to avoid getting wetter.
"You lost?" Katsuki asked. The gate was open and the kid was in distress - legally he could trespass, so he walked up, watching the kid jump and gasp, then snap his face up.
Katsuki almost gasped himself. The kid was pretty, he'd give him that. They had hair a paler blond than his own, darker where it was plastered to his face. Their eyes were large, amber, with red and green streaks in the middle, slit pupils going thin as a paper and uncovering the colours in the centre. The kid had a heart-shaped face with pouty, bitten lips that seemed to hint to a cat's.
He reminded Katsuki so much of his husband he had to take a second to find his breath.
"No," the kid sniffles. The voice was high, so maybe a girl? "I live here," he went on, voice catching in a sobbing inhale, wiping his sopping face with an equally wet sleeve that simply moved water around. "Sort of."
Alarms immediately rang in Katsuki's head.
"Foster care?" Katsuki asked gently, squatting in front of him and tilting the umbrella to cover the kid's head. They were both soaked already, but he could at least do this.
The kid just shrugged. His eyes narrowed, and Katsuki had to bite back a growl. Fuck That.
"Ok kid, you're coming with me," he barked. The kid's eyes went huge, and he started backing away, making Katsuki snort. "Smart kid," he smirked, ruffling his hair and ignoring his flinch - another sign that made him grit his teeth - as he took his phone out and speed dialled. "Hey, this is Dynamite, registration number 58639." He brought his hero card out and handed it to the kid, who was now staring at him open mouthed. He'd never tell Eijirou or that smug broccoli-head, but the awe on children's faces was something that absolutely melted his heart.
"I'm in the Horuka prefuncture; yeah, my backyard. I'm picking up a kid who seems to have been left out in the rain. What's your name, kid," he directed at the child, who was still turning the card in his hands
"Is this real?!" he whispered. "Are you really Dynamight?! "
Katsuki sighed. Maybe the awe had its place, but it sure got in the way sometimes. Katsuki put his phone on speaker.
"Sergeant Suroko, please confirm that I am Dynamight. Smart kid doesn't trust a stranger."
Katsuki watched as the kid talked to the officer, watching the slight blush on his very pale face.
"Dynamight?" came the officer's voice. "Can you bring him to the closest police box to be registered? You'll be taking him to your place until a social worker can be assigned?"
Fucking hell. Right. He was going to have to hurry that hotpot up, and there was a lot of stuff he needed to do - shit, was their spare bedroom aired out enough?
"I'll do that," he said, finding the closest one on Google maps. "So what's the story, kid; got locked out?"
"Lost my keys," he said, voice small. He took Katsuki's outstretched hand, following him out of the entryway with a backpack Katsuki hadn’t noticed at first clutched tightly to his chest. "And she's home, but she won't open for me."
"Foster mum?" Katsuki asked.
"Step mum," the kid replied. Katsuki waited, but nothing else came.
They walked to the next police box, logging the incident in with the officer in his tiny cubicle, and Katsuki learned the kid's name at last.
"Akagane Kohaku," he said, his Japanese a little accented, Katsuki noted. The kid had started shivering, so Katsuki pulled him closer and felt him lean back into him. The wet clothes clung to him, and did little to hide how boney he was. "I… I'm supposed to live with my father. Lost the keys and my step mum didn't let me in."
"You're sure she was in the house?" The officer asked. The boy nodded.
"Her car was parked outside, and the porch light was on. I left my father some messages, but, it's been two hours, maybe the weather…"
"The weather could have held him up, yeah," the officer replied, with a significant look at Katsuki. Yeah, fuck that.
"Is he really, I mean…" Kohaku blushed again, eyes flitting up to Katsuki. "Dynamight? Like, the real one, from TV?"
"Yeah, he is," the officer confirmed. The rain got heavier, making a racket on the booth's flimsy structure.
"Look … Konokawa? Yeah, look, this is shit weather to let the kid stay out in. Take care to inform HQ I have him; once the parents finally panic, just let them know he's safe, and I'll bring him back personally. If they get a caseworker involved, I'll coordinate with Suroko from my end. You're in charge of the crap parents, got it?"
"Yes, leave it to me," he replied, and Katsuki gave him a thankful nod.
"Ok kid, we have a bit of a run, and a short train ride. Up for it?"
He got a nod and wide eyes. The hoodie couldn't get anymore soaked if he jumped in a lake with it, so Katsuki just picked him up in one arm - he was so fucking light - balancing the shopping bags and umbrella in the other, and took off at a jog towards the station.
The kid was silent through all the journey, clinging to him with all his limbs like he was afraid Katsuki would fade if he let go. His trembling also got worse the second they stepped into the heated station, and Katsuki held him tighter as they pushed their way into the train. It wasn't rush hour and they were sopping, so the people on the train gave them a wide berth at the clinging pole.
So much the better. Katsuki's brain was going a mile a minute.
As heroes, they were immediately written in as foster carers as soon as they got their official licence. He and Eijirou had fostered a couple of kids during emergencies; building collapses, villain attacks. The kids usually stayed with them until their parents got out of hospital or a relative could pick them up.
This shouldn't feel different. It shouldn't. But the trembling little body against him somehow did. There wasn't a major crises, there wasn't an attack, a gas explosion, a bridge that had gone down, a building that had been damaged and needed time to be repaired back into habitability.
It was just raining, and a kid had been locked out of his house by a parent. It felt… wrong. Even when he'd been at his shittiest little shit stage, the most his mother had done was whack his head to tone it down. And then he'd often whacked her back, to the point where his dad had often been the score keeper to a Mexican slap off. She had never locked him out, sent him away, made him feel like he was anything but wanted. His dad was always ready to smile and hug him, even if he was more quiet and withdrawn than Katsuki felt he could ever get close to.
He felt bony against Katsuki's ribs. Kids, even growing ones, shouldn't be this bony.
Somehow, even with all the shivering, the boy had fallen into a light doze. Katsuki could hear him breathing lightly against his neck, so with some finagling, he brought his phone out.
Got soaking wet for your ass, but got the ingredients for hot pot.
I love you so much
You love my hotpot, more like. We have a guest, too. Picked up a stray.
OMG IS IT A KITTEN? A PUPPY???
Shit, my bad. I meant a kid. Got roped into an emergency foster. I'll tell you details when you're home. Kid stuck in the rain.
Awww. Right, right, we need to fix our shifts for a dog.
Heh, I see your hints and pointedly ignore them.
Meany
Katsuki smiled fondly. A seat opened, one of the stations on the way home emptying almost half the carriage, and Katsuki took it. The kid was out, lightly snoring against Katsuki's neck, and his trembling had stopped, so he sat down gently. He hated the idea of waking him, so he kept holding him till the end of the commute, and then again as they left the station and got back into the taxi. He’d usually walk it, but this kid needed all the warmth he could get.
The fact that he was so soundly asleep, just because Katsuki was holding him, was deeply alarming. He was boney, soaking wet and definitely cold, and in the presence of a relative stranger, what little kindness Katsuki had shown had already lulled the child. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t trusting; Katsuki had already understood as much. And yet here he was, already exhausted enough he couldn’t stay awake.
Katsuki ended up carrying him all the way, and he was very grateful to the taxi driver who took his shopping bags, so the blond could haul in the child and his old backpack. They bowed to one another as the driver left him at the reception of his and Eijirou’s building, and he was relieved to be home.
The driver had probably realised who he was escorting by the time he got here - it was, after all, the dwelling of most of Class 1A in the city. He and Eijirou had a small cabin up in the mountains, one they used to get away for a few weeks a few times a year, to go hike - and be lovebirds, Denki said - so he hoped the taxi man would be discrete, too.
The doorman on duty tonight took up the baton, and Katsuki could finally get into the top floor apartment he shared with his husband. Izuku had the other penthouse, with the four of them (because Ochako was there more often than not these days) sharing a wall. The blond sighed and allowed his shoulder to sag as soon as the door was closed behind him. This was his space to feel safe. His own, that he’d shaped to fit him just right. Eijirou fit in with him just right, too, as if they were fingers in a well-worn glove. There were pieces of them everywhere, and Katsuki hoped the kid didn’t mind, for some reason.
Speaking of, Katsuki had almost forgotten his negligible weight in his arms - the shopping and backpack combined weighed more than the kid did, for crap’s sake. He was still markedly damp, but Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to wake him.
As gently as possible, he put all the things down on the kitchen bench, and then took the kid to the spare bedroom. It was a little generic and drab, but at the moment Katsuki was very glad he’d allowed himself to be spoken into having the super fluffy blanket in here. It was mostly for when Denki stayed over, sure, but when he put the kid down onto it and wrapped it up around him, Katsuki felt relieved. He put the heating up in the room by a few notches, and left the door slightly ajar; he didn’t know what the kid had been through, and thinking through his own trauma, maybe being locked up, even just the impression of it, would make him panic.
Katsuki moved back to the kitchen, before he stopped. He rested against the wall separating the sleeping areas from the den.
Crap. Crap it was so bad. He hadn’t felt this … off-centre in a long time. There was something wrong here, something very wrong. He had the urge to straighten up his home almost like he was getting a visit from his mother, or Aizawa. Like an important person was about to be there.
And the memory of the kid … it was stamped onto Katsuki’s mind. He had almost missed him. In fact, Katsuki was almost sure that had he not been a hero, had he not been trained to take in minute details and little movements, he would have. The tiny, shivering boy, trying to turn into a ball of wet clothes around the backpack he held so protectively Katsuki hadn’t even noted it, sheltering under eaves of a modern styled Japanese house that offered little shelter at all. A small sniffle of a suppressed sob: had he done that a few minutes later, Katsuki wouldn't have seen him.
He shook himself, pushed himself off the wall and got to work in the kitchen, ignoring his own wet clothes as his warm home made him comfortable. He opened the parcels of meat and vegetables, brought out the stainless steel containers, and began to wipe the bench down before starting when the bag caught his eyes.
He stopped again, picked it up, and went to place it beside the kid. If he’d rather get soaked than allow it and its contents to touch water, then there had to be something precious in it. Maybe it was just homework, maybe it was a phone or a console. Whatever it was, Katsuki wanted the kid to know exactly where it was when he woke up.
He went back to the kitchen, washed his hands again and started on the hotpot with vigour.
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End 1
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