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The day she got the test results was the most tragic day of her life. Infertile. It wouldn’t be so bad, if Nemuri could adopt, but there wasn’t an agency in Japan that would adopt a child to an active hero. Not to mention her reputation didn’t appeal to many of them, either.
“I’m sorry, Miss Midnight. I just don’t think we’re the right fit for you.”
She heard that over and over, disappointment after disappointment sending her into a spiral. She was ready to quit her job, anything to increase her chances of adopting a baby. She even offered as much to one agency, who at least at the confidence to tell her ‘no’ to her face.
“I just don’t imagine being a mother is a… good idea for someone like you.”
Not even her best friends could pull her out of the slump that one sent her into.
The dorms being built at UA happened shortly after Nemuri gave up on her dream of becoming a mother, giving her something to distract herself. Hizashi stupidly told her that she could at least be a mother to the students, earning him the loudest silent treatment Nemuri could give.
Shouta was out fighting villains when it happened. Nemuri took over his dorm visits for the night, saving Class 1-A for her final checks. She doesn’t know if it was meant to be, starting from the bottom floor, but when she got to her final room of the night- Sero Hanta’s room- the stars aligned.
There was no response when she knocked on the door, but the light was on. “Sero, checking in.” Still nothing. Everyone else was accounted for, so she couldn’t lie to herself and say Sero was with one of them. She hated this part of dorm visits, but without knowing what was going on, she had to step in, literally.
She unlocked the door with her key, pushing it open. The room was quiet, but a mess, crayons and coloring books scattered across the floor. A bit strange for a highschooler, but Nemuri wasn’t one to judge. Her eyes scanned the room, locking onto the bright yellow onesie in the dorm bed, the dark-haired student staring at her wide-eyed with his thumb firmly in his mouth.
Oh.
Sero’s jaw goes slack, mouth gaping open. Nemuri steps inside quickly, closing the door behind her to protect the boy’s privacy. She can see the fear in his dark eyes, tears quickly welling up.
And yet, as if she’s done this a thousand times before, she responds gently. “Shh, don’t cry. Mommy’s here.”
Truth be told, this was brand new territory for Nemuri. She had a couple of partners in the past try to get her to call them ‘daddy’, but she ended that line of thinking very quickly. And despite calling herself ‘mommy’, it wasn’t the same as before with those men. No, this time she meant it in all the innocence of the word ‘mommy’, all of the hushed promises to take care of the boy in front of her.
Sero seems stunned, but after a long moment he reaches out, making grabby hands at Nemuri. She locks the door for him, walking gracefully across the room as she effortlessly lifts the teenager like he was just an infant. He was quite a bit heavier than a baby, thanks to his muscle, but Nemuri was strong in her own right as a hero. It only took a moment of shuffling the boy before she found the proper way to hold him. “There we go, did we have a rough day at school, baby?”
He sniffles wetly, the tears spilling quietly down his cheeks. But it’s not the frightened crying that he threatened to do, nor is it bawling like she thinks he was likely doing before she showed up. A soft crying, gentle tears that help release the pent-up frustration of being a hero student. “’m stupid,” he whimpers once he’s finally accepted her as his mommy.
“You’re not stupid, baby,” she promises, bouncing him lightly. “Why would you say something so mean about yourself? Are the other kids making you feel stupid?”
Sero shakes his head, but Nemuri thinks that isn’t quite true. She knows the Bakugou kid has a habit of talking down to his friends, despite meaning it as affectionately as he can. But this still feels like something Sero has been called for a lot longer than he’s been at UA.
“Failed a test,” he murmurs, the tears starting to slow down finally. “Stupid baby.”
“Stop calling yourself stupid,” she warns him, her voice light but firm. “Do we need to put that on your list of no-no words?”
“Sorry,” he says, finally pulling his face out of her chest. It’s not the first time Sero has had his face there, but this time seems much more innocent than the previous time. And she thinks he won’t be bragging about this occurrence to Mineta the way he did before.
Despite her strength, carrying a hero-in-training is exhausting, and Nemuri brings them to Sero’s bed, settling comfortably as she holds the boy close to her. She doesn’t dare offer him anything that could be seen as inappropriate, nor does she pressure him to open up. “It’s okay, baby boy. We all fail tests, you know. Mommy used to fail her art history tests all the time.”
A giggle escapes Sero’s lips, bright and bubbly like the babbling of a child. Her heart soars hearing it, as if she heard her own baby’s laughter for the first time. “Mommy’s not stupid.”
“No,” she agrees with him, “Mommy’s not stupid. And neither is my baby, okay?”
Sero nods, even if she knows he doesn’t fully agree with her. But it’s a start, something to earn the boy’s trust. She pulls up the sleeve of her pajamas, rocking Sero until her quirk puts him into a deep sleep.
~*~
Hanta wants to cry.
Not the baby crying he knows he did last night, but the type of crying that comes from utter humiliation and fear. He slipped last night- he knew it was a possibility. That’s why he brought his toys and coloring books and clothes. But what he didn’t think was a possibility was any of the teachers finding out.
Catastrophizing, Hanta thinks about how Midnight-sensei would tell the rest of his class. How she would surely get him kicked out of UA, bar him from being any type of hero. Which was fair, Hanta figured, because who wants to be saved by a hero that still wears baby clothes?
The rest of his classmates act normal, however, as if they know nothing. Todoroki greets him in the awkward way the boy is known for, Bakugou threatens to make him study twice as hard for their next test, and Kirishima invites him to go workout after classes that day. All is normal.
Aizawa-sensei doesn’t act weird around him, though the man does seem to be uncomfortable by Hanta’s staring. He isn’t trying to be rude, just waiting patiently for the moment Aizawa-sensei tells him that he knows.
But nothing happens in class, and eventually it’s Modern Hero Art History. With Midnight-sensei, the moment he’s been most worried about. Did she take photos? Was she going to show a slideshow to all of his friends? Was she going to-
“Sero,” Midnight’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts. “Do you want to answer the question on the board?”
She’s doing him a favor, he realizes, glancing at the board. It’s a question he knows- he got this one right on the last test they had. Hanta answers it with ease, gets his signature ‘good boy’ from his teacher, and class moves on.
Nobody knows. Nobody knows and Midnight-sensei isn’t going to tell them.
A wave of relief washes over Hanta, one that carries him through their hero training that afternoon. He breezes by, earning praise from All Might and Aizawa-sensei alike. Even Bakugou seems to notice he’s doing better.
“Finally over that fucking test?” Bakugou says, as if to tease him, but Hanta knows it’s just the boy’s way of showing he cares. That, and the fact Bakugou makes Hanta’s favorite food for dinner.
Midnight-sensei does rounds again, and once again she saves Hanta’s room for last. He lets her in quietly, closing the door behind them.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Hanta says quickly. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
“How old are you?”
Midnight’s question throws him off, and Hanta stares at her long enough for her to ask him again. “I’m sixteen, ma’am.”
She grins at him, and Hanta feels his stomach sink. Was she just waiting this long to make fun of him in private. “Cute answer, kid, but you know what I was asking.”
“Three.”
He can see the thoughts running through Midnight-sensei’s face, and he waits for her to tell him to grow up. He’s sixteen, not three, and he needs to act his age. But none of these harsh words come from her.
“So, you don’t need me to buy any diapers?”
Hanta wishes he could die for the second time that day. “N-no. Please don’t do that.”
Midnight walks around his dorm room like she belongs there, but she doesn’t dig through his things. She picks up his crayons and books from the night before, however, gathering things in her arms. “These books are all filled.”
“Y-yeah,” he agrees. “I just, kind of… color over them.”
“A shame,” she sighs. “You deserve to get yourself a few nice things, you know.”
Wait, was his teacher actually okay with this? “It’s not… I’m not… I can’t just…”
“How often do you slip?” she asks him, setting the books and crayons on his desk once she’s finished cleaning.
“Once a week,” Hanta admits, and she considers that a long moment before speaking again.
“I’ll see you next week, Sero.”
He doesn’t get a chance to respond before she’s already gone.
~*~
Nemuri will be the first to admit she may have overdone it with the shopping. The first goal she has is to buy him all new coloring books, refusing to force her baby to reuse ages-old books. She buys a few toys she thinks the boy would like, including some of the most popular age-appropriate toys of her favorite colleagues. She eyes the display of Midnight toys but decides that’s not exactly age-appropriate for her three-year-old.
She grabs snacks, making small containers of healthy treats she can give the boy. She fills a bag, dark enough to keep the contents from being seen, and makes her way across the dorms.
The other students barely noticed her, too caught up in their own studying. Sero’s already in his room, and he lets her in when she knocks.
“You don’t have to do this,” he grumbles, and she can see the struggle in his eyes.
“Open the bag first,” she tells him, handing over the large bag. Sero peeks in, and his eyes betray his desire to not seem excited.
“For me?”
“Go get changed,” she tells him with a playful pat on his back. Sero disappears into the bathroom for a long moment, coming out in a pale blue onesie, a pacifier in his mouth. It takes a bit for him to relax, but Nemuri finally gets him to understand that the other students won’t hear him from their dorm rooms. Cementoss gave them more privacy than they think.
Nemuri lets him open his All Might toy, grinning to herself as he makes the figure fly around the room ‘saving’ his mommy.
“I’m gonna be a hero one day, Mommy!” Sero tells her, talking around the pacifier.
“Yes you are,” she smiles, picking him up and pulling him into her lap. “You’re going to be my little hero, you know.”
Sero giggles, wiggling in her grip until he frees himself, going to grab his coloring books now. She helps him pick out the colors for the unicorns, watching his careless scribbles with pride. It’s like he really is her baby now.
That night before she leaves, Nemuri tucks him into bed. She’s never seen the boy so happy, such a contrast from himself last week, even.
“Thank you for being the best mommy ever,” Sero mumbles, and Nemuri knows that she isn’t the only one he’s ranking here.
“I love you, baby,” she kisses his forehead. “Sleep well.”
She uses her quirk with his permission, shutting off the lights and locking the door. She may not know what happened to the boy before, but she’ll do everything she can to heal her little hero now.