Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Eraser!” The loud, cheerful call rings out across the staff room.

Shōta feels the dried-out spiritual edamame pod that passes for his soul shrivel up at the corners just a bit more.

“Joke,” Shōta slumps further down in his chair.  “Why are you here?”

“Had to see a rat about a broccoli,” Joke answers, nonsensical as always, as she sprawls her upper body across the top of Shōta’s desk and props her chin on her folded hands.  “But you know what you can do for me?”

“Die?” Shōta asks hopefully, attention deliberately on his computer instead of the jester-core irritant currently invading his personal space.

“Ha!” Joke crows, moving to slap one hand on the desktop.  “You’ve got the best jokes, Eraser and I need them in my family line.”

Shōta doesn’t bother to bite back his groan because he knows exactly where this is headed.

“You should totally marry my baby boy!”  Joke proclaims.

Wait.

“What?” Shōta is acutely aware that he’s not the only one who is confused.  The rest of the staff room is staring at them now too.

“You should marry my Izu-chan,” Joke continues, obviously warming to the subject as she straightens up with a face-splitting grin.  “Just think, you can be my son-in-law!”

“Absolutely not,” Shōta resists the urge to gag at the very idea.

“Don’t be like that,” Joke reaches out to bat at the air in front of Shōta’s face.  “My sweet Izu-chan is the best!  You two would make the perfect couple.”

He resists the urge to snap his teeth at her fingers only by the fact that he’s spent years refusing to have any part of Joke in his mouth and he’s not about to ruin that streak now.

“One, your bloodline is cursed,” Shōta replies.  “Two, I neither want nor need a child bride.”

“Don’t be afraid of the age gap, Eraser,” Joke shoots back.  “That just means he’ll keep you on your toes.”

Shōta goes to snip back at her but Joke pauses, attention obviously diverted as one hand goes to her hip pouch to pull out her phone.  She swipes at the screen for a moment and then grins.

“I’ve got to run but I’ll be back,” Joke says as she repockets her phone and abruptly spins on her heel to head toward the door.  “Stay funny, Eraser!  And think about what I said.  I’ve decided you and my Izu-chan are destined to be!”

Joke hits the staff room doorway at a jog and then, with one last wild wave to the room at large, is gone as abruptly as she’d arrived.

“What just happened?” Hizashi asks the obvious question.

“No idea,” Shōta reaches up to rub at his aching eyes, “but I need it to never happen again.”

~~~

Which means, of course, that it absolutely happens again.

~~~

“Eraser!” Joke’s less than dulcet tones ring out through the staff room.

“Kill me,” Shōta, mug in hand and busy staring at the entirely too slow coffee maker, turns toward the person closest to him.

“Would love to,” Vlad answers, oversized fangs glinting in the too-bright light like the attention-seeking and poorly bred pug he so obviously is.

“You couldn’t kill me even if I let you,” Shōta says automatically.

Which doesn’t make it any less true.

“Fuck you,” Vlad snips back.

“Not even with one of Nemuri’s dicks,” Shōta reaches out, grabs the finally full coffee pot off of the burner, and turns to head back to his desk.

Shōta is sure that Vlad, left standing behind him with a matching empty skull and cup, does something suitably dramatic and asinine but he can’t be bothered to turn around to check.

Joke is, of course, once more perched on the edge of his desk, this time out of costume and instead wearing an eye-searing tie-dyed dress with a massive canvas tote bag resting on the floor by her feet.

“You given any more thought to marrying my Izu-chan?” Joke doesn’t even give Shōta the courtesy of allowing him to sit down before she starts.

“I trauma block everything you say to me as soon as you leave my line of sight,” Shōta slumps down into his desk chair, sitting the coffee pot on the hand-sized Nedzu-themed coaster that keeps reappearing on his desk no matter how many times he throws it away.

Joke barks out another loud laugh.

“You kill me Eraser,” Joke grins, sandaled feet thumping against the side of his desk.

“Not fast enough apparently,” Shōta mutters as he rummages through his desk drawer for the bottle of coffee concentrate he keeps there.

He hears Hizashi’s familiar noise of disgust when he upends half of the bottle into the coffee pot and then picks the pot up to swirl it around before finally pouring himself a cup.

He can bitch at Shōta about his caffeine intake when he stops chugging those shitty energy drinks he likes so much.

“Come on,” Joke whines just a bit.  “Just give in already! My Izu-chan brings a lot to the table, you know?  He’s all smart and sweet!  You’ll love him.”

“Doubtful,” Shōta mutters against the rim of his already half-empty mug.

“Hell, he’s even a good artist,” Joke keeps going.  “He drew a picture of me the other day that was so good it practically knocked my socks off.”

Shōta has a sudden mental image of a stick figure with a clown nose and little jagged noise lines surrounding it.

“I’m sure the likeness was stunning,” Shōta says.

“It was!” Joke agrees happily.  “I hung it right on the fridge!”

“Alright Em,” Nemuri abruptly chimes in as she slides her way into the conversation and onto the edge of Hizashi’s desk. “I’m going to ask the question we all want the answer to.”

“I don’t actually care,” Shōta feels the need to clarify.

“Hit me, Nem!” Joke agrees happily.

“Car or van?” Shōta asks, leaning to the side to dodge the paper ball Nemuri scoops up from Hizashi’s pile and lobs at him.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Nemuri plows on, “I’m all for finding Shōta someone to cure him of his blossoming cat-lady ways, but since when do you have a kid?”

“Hm,” Joke brings a hand up to cup her chin in a thinking pose.  “Let’s see, it must have been around six or seven months ago that I found my Izu-chan?”

“Found him?”  Nemuri asks.

“Yup!” Joke shoots Nemuri a thumbs up.  “I was out and about when I came across him being bullied by some assholes so I stepped in.  Took one look at Izu-chan and just knew we were meant to stick together ya know?  He even knew who I was before I said anything and I wasn’t even in costume.  He asked for an autograph and everything.”

Which, Shōta begrudgingly admits, is actually kind of impressive.

Joke, much like Nemuri, is a twilight hero with an established and decently popular gimmick and brand, but for a kid to recognize her on sight while out of costume?

It’s a lot rarer than most people realize.

Shōta can’t count the number of times he’s been dragged around by the compound error he calls his social circle only to pass by people wearing merch with one of the idiot’s faces on it who don’t even blink in their direction.

“He sounds smart,” Nemuri says.

“I told you he’s a little genius,” Joke’s grin is shockingly sweet and proud.  “He turns all red and squirmy when you tell him that but it’s true.”

“Aw,” Nemuri coos just a bit.  “You really love him huh?”

“He’s one of the best things to ever happen to me,” Joke replies instantly and with surprising seriousness.  “Always thought I was happy before, but meeting him just changed things.  Made stuff fall together just right.”

Shōta might be allergic to roughly ninety percent of everything that makes Joke up as a person but even he has to admit that the warm contentedness in her expression is nice to see.

This Izu-chan kid must be something really special.

“Which is why I think Eraser should marry him!” Joke abruptly shifts lanes back onto her original angle of attack.  “He’ll bring light into your life!”

“Darker the better,” Shōta tops up his coffee.  “Don’t you have a job to get back to?”

“Eh,” Joke shrugs.  “My third years are all on their work studies and since they’re practically grown now Principal Toramaru lets me run loose a bit.”

It’s settled then, Shōta is going to send Ketsubutsu’s principal spiders in the mail.

Joke’s phone buzzes then and after a quick glance at the screen, she finally hops off the edge of Shōta’s desk and bends down to grab the handles of her massive bag.

“Welp,” Joke says once she’s shouldered the thing, “I’ve got lunch to deliver so I’ve got to run!”

Joke breezes out of the staff room like the localized disaster she is.

Shōta is fully willing to kiss whoever keeps texting Joke and causing her to cut her little visits short fully on the mouth.

“I don’t know Shōta,” Hizashi chimes in from his desk, feet propped up on the side, arms folded behind his head, and a too-wide grin on his face. “Emi’s selling her kid to you awful hard and it’s not like you’ve got anyone else waiting in the wings.  Didn’t take you for such a cradle robber though you dirty old man.”

Shōta’s capture scarf lashes out, grabs Hizashi by the ankle, and heaves.

The resulting screech as Hizashi tips over backward in his chair is painfully loud but worth it.

~~~

Unfortunately for Shōta, Joke keeps coming around, is in and out of UA’s staff room far more often than anyone who doesn’t actually work there should ever be.

But what’s worse is that every single time she drops by she has something new to say about her sweet Izu-chan and how well he and Shōta would suit.

~~~

“You should see the thing Izu-chan built last night,” Joke brags, a massive metal suitcase in one hand and a to-go cup of something in the other.  “He’s very good with his hands!”

Shōta groans and slides down in his chair.

He’s sure whatever house or jumble of shapes Joke’s kid managed to slap together with legos or play-dough, or the tattered remnants of the various victims of Joke’s shitty stand-up, is absolutely captivating.

Shōta would rather actually be held captive than listen to Joke wax poetic about it though.

~~~

Which means, of course, that the assholes he works with decide the joke is too good to pass up.

~~~

“So have you set a date yet?” Nemuri asks from where she’s sprawled across Shōta’s lap.

“For your execution?” Shōta asks, reaching around her for the carton of dim sum.

“For your wedding of course,” Nemuri shoots back.  “I’ve always thought you’d make an excellent Autumn bride but by the time Izu-chan’s an adult you’ll probably be grey so maybe we should go with a wint-”

Shōta pushes her off of his lap and onto the floor as Hizashi and Tensei cackle together in the background.

~~~

The first time Thirteen asks him if he’s heard anything new about his fiancé recently, Shōta contemplates the merits of attempting to resign from his position and finally escaping to fulfill his lifelong dream of crawling into a hole and never emerging again.

It wouldn’t work of course, Shōta’s well aware that the only way Nedzu will ever let him resign from UA is if Nedzu would somehow find it useful and/or funny.

Suffering, it seems, truly is Shōta’s lot in life.

~~~

“It’s not the first time he’s been in a fight like that,” Joke laments to an amused Inui.  “He can obviously handle himself and I’m totally on his side about it, I honestly would have thrown hands too, but I still worry about him getting in trouble.”

Shōta has a sudden and blinding mental image of a mini male Joke beating other kids up on the playground with a toy megaphone.

He gets up and walks out of the staff room before Joke can turn to him and start spouting off about how “you’d keep Izu-chan in line, Eraser” or whatever other nonsense she’d inevitably come up with.

~~~

All teasing aside, Shōta’s still not expecting to ever actually meet the infamous “Izu-chan”.

Joke’s far too frequent visits to UA’s staff room are normally during the middle of the school day so he fully expects the kid to be at whatever school is unlucky enough to be responsible for Joke’s spawn’s education.

Which is why he’s more than a bit taken aback when Joke pauses in the middle of showing off yet another tie-dyed abomination that Izu-chan had apparently made with her, to check her phone and then abruptly squeal happily.

“Good news?” Hizashi asks.

“Izu-chan’s on his way!” Joke announces.

A beat.

“No fucking way!” Nemuri lunges up out of her desk chair, glee practically vibrating from her.

“We’re finally getting to meet the bean?”  Hizashi asks, equally as excited.

“Quick,” Vlad cuts in from across the room, “someone hose Eraser off before he scares the kid away.”

Shōta lifts an arm and shoots a rude gesture in Vlad’s direction.

“I’ve been trying to get him down here for ages to meet everyone,” Joke rambles, hopping up onto the edge of Hizashi’s desk.  “He’s just so shy sometimes.  But Nedzu is letting him go early today so things have finally lined up!”

Wait.

“What does Nedzu have to do with this?” Shōta asks the real important question, an absent sort of dread twisting in his gut.

“He’s been keeping Izu-chan busy,” Joke announces happily, as if leaving a small child, especially one as smart as Izu-chan is supposed to be, alone with Nedzu is no big deal at all.

Shōta trusts Nedzu not to physically hurt an innocent child, but mentally?  Emotionally? Morally?

Those are all always up in the air whenever Nedzu is involved.

The last time Nedzu was left alone with one of the grade school classes who had won the raffle to tour UA?

The class had been in the news the next week for staging a coup on the administration in order to gain more funding for their library.

Watching a bunch of first graders read out a manifesto written in crayon and containing the phrase “restriction of knowledge is a tool of the bourgeoisie” to an obviously appalled reporter and one very bemused hostage negotiator was an experience Shōta isn’t looking forward to repeating any time soon.

There’s a knock on the staff room door.

“Izu-chan!” Joke calls out.  “Get in here already!”

The door slides open.

The staff room goes dead silent.

Instead of a kid, there’s a man in the doorway.

Shorter than Shōta by a handful of inches, wide-shouldered and narrow-waisted, his green curls tousled over a crisp undercut, and wearing a sleeveless faux turtleneck that shows off impressively muscled and thickly scarred arms, the man is unmistakable.

“I-Is this Izu-chan’s dad?” Nemuri asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hizashi adds.  “It’s nice to meet you man, we’re all big fans, but we wanna see the sprout.” 

Joke barks out a delighted laugh.

“Get in here and introduce yourself,”  Joke waves the man into the room.

“Emi, you’re so rude,” Dekiru says as he slides the door closed behind him.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all, I’m Midoriya Izuku.”

Shōta feels a horrible sort of understanding begin to dawn over him.

“Everyone meet my Izu-chan,” Joke announces.  “Izu-chan meet UA’s mostly illustrious staff.  But most importantly, come meet Eraser, your future husband.”

A beat.

And then … 

Pandemonium.

Chapter Text

If someone had told Izuku eight months ago that he’d be standing in the doorway of the UA staff room watching an entire room full of fellow pro heroes have some kind of collective meltdown, he would have assumed there was a villain of some sort involved.

If someone had told him that same thing five months ago, he would have sighed and asked what, exactly, Emi had done this time.

It’s almost nice to have that second prophecy, and Izuku would use the word ‘assumption’ instead of prophecy, but that would leave too much room for doubt, validated in real time.  Because if there’s one thing Izuku has learned over and over again in the past seven months, it’s that the majority of the chaos in his life that isn’t directly villain-related, and a not insignificant portion that is, is one hundred percent guaranteed to be Emi-related instead.

If he had known how his life would change when he had ended up on the wrong side of an arrest attempt for vigilantism for stopping a purse snatching out of costume …

Well, to be completely honest, Izuku wouldn’t change a single thing about that entire encounter.

Not only because, in costume or not, Izuku is a hero, but also because old lady Kinato is one more incident away from getting arrested again. She’s been warned that the next ‘self-defense’ claim she tries to run with will be escalated to a battery charge since beating up and then robbing a thief who attempts to rob her does not always, in fact, cause the crimes to cancel out.

Granted, any charges are unlikely to actually stick or progress beyond producing another mug-shot for her to add to the wall in her cafe, but the hassle of it all, as she’d undoubtedly call him in to flaunt him around as her ‘adopted hero grandson’, just wasn’t worth it.

So stopping Kinato from handling the extremely unlucky thief who’d targeted her had really been the best idea all the way around.  Especially since her doctor had told her she would end up throwing her back out again if she kept suplexing people without at least warming up beforehand.

Plus, the last time she’d been put on a light rest order to heal up, she had browbeat Izuku into accompanying her to the retirement center on one of his days off.  Doing surprisingly intense Tai Chi with a group of seventy-year-old and up women had been a special kind of embarrassing.  Mostly due to all of the pinching, catcalling, matchmaking attempts, and really descriptive birth stories he’d had to endure.

Preventing that from repeating was also obviously an act of self-care the likes of which would likely drive his mom to proud tears.  Which, granted, isn’t exactly a hard bar to clear, but the point still stands.

All of that aside, getting harassed post-robbery attempt by a pair of beat cops and a freshly debuted hero, none of whom had recognized him out of costume, also hadn’t been part of the day’s plan.  A plan that had previously only consisted of helping Kinato transport a new cat from the local shelter to her cafe and had somehow, once again, devolved into a shopping spree that he had been desperate not to see evolve into a bar crawl.  Again.

Dealing with that while being forced to use Blackwhip to restrain not only the would-be thief but also Kinato, who never passed up an opportunity to heckle the police, had been particularly exhausting.

Having The Smile Hero herself crash the standoff while also out of costume and immediately read the officers and Talonflame, the young hero seemingly determined to arrest Izuku, the riot act had been the last thing he’d been expecting to happen.

“Holy broccoli, you’re green,” Joke had cackled, face split in a wide grin, as soon as the officers and Talonflame had finally fled, attempted purse thief in tow.  “We could be related! Oh, oh, maybe I’m your dad!”

“Time to put your hero salary to good use then, Ms. Joke,” Izuku had automatically replied.  “You owe my mom so much back child support.”

Joke had stared at him.

Izuku, Blackwhip finally releasing Kinato, had just stared back.

Then Joke had cackled, reached over to slap Izuku on the back, and then promptly hooked her arm through his.

“You know me and you’ve got jokes!” Joke had crowed, seemingly delighted.  “Jokes are my whole thing and we’re both green!  It’s like it was meant to be, so obviously I’m keeping you!  I’m your dad now!”

Izuku, Joke on one side and Kinato’s barking laughter on the other, had for once known when he was beaten.

That chance meeting had blossomed into so much more than he could have ever thought possible.

Not only had he gained a loyal if chaotic friend in Emi, but his mom’s life had changed as well.

Because roughly two months into their new friendship, two months filled with a constantly updating message chain, multiple meet-ups for coffee, Izuku attending his first stand-up night at a local comedy club, and various other forms of chaos, Emi had wormed her way into finally meeting his mom.

So Izuku had taken Emi along with him to visit the adorable house he had bought Inko in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of Musutafu the moment he’d started pulling in actual money as a hero.

But, as seemed to be the pattern with Emi, the last thing Izuku had expected to happen had, of course, immediately taken place.

“Izu-chan,” Emi had breathed, face flushed and eyes wide, both hands clutching Inko’s where they were settled on the loveseat together.  “You didn’t tell me your mom was a literal angel.”

“I told you she’s wonderful,” Izuku had protested hotly, unwilling to let his mom think otherwise for even a second.

“Oh, you two,” Inko had giggled, obviously pleased. “Stop it!”

“Wonderful doesn’t cover it,” Emi had carried on, bringing her and Inko’s clasped hands up to hover right beneath her chin.  “You’re a total MILF. Marry me!”

Inko had squeaked, plump cheeks turning a deep red.

Izuku, hot chocolate in hand, had immediately choked.

“Please," Izuku had wheezed when he could finally breathe again. "I can’t hear things like that.”

“Too bad!” Emi had announced cheerfully, pressing a teasing kiss to the back of Inko’s hands as she’d stared at her adoringly. “You’re going to have to hear it all the time now that I’m your dad.”

And, just like that, Izuku’s new chaotic best friend had started her one-woman campaign to woo his mother.

Izuku had made peace with the idea relatively quickly when Emi had kept up her apparently completely sincere flirting.  Mainly because Inko, always so self-conscious and having never put herself back out there after Hisashi had disappeared from their lives, had never actually turned her down.

In fact, there had been a sparkle in Inko’s eyes after that night that Izuku had never seen before.  The kind of sparkle he admits he used to dream about seeing back when he was younger and was still harboring some tiny kernel of hope that his mom and Toshi-sensei would fall in love.

Acquiring All Might as a step-dad would have been the ultimate merch acquisition, second only to when he’d been given One For All.

But then Izuku eventually met Nao and saw firsthand the way he and Toshi-sensei interacted.  Ten minutes into that meeting had been enough for Izuku to finally set the Step-Might daydream aside for good.

So, in the face of Inko’s obvious joy and returned interest in Emi, Izuku had ultimately decided to just embrace the absolutely chaotic and unique new family dynamic that had taken over his life.  

And that was before Emi had introduced him to Nedzu and all of the honestly addictive chaos that comes hand-in-paw with simply knowing him.

But Emi seems to have honestly outdone herself this time, given the level of chaos running rampant through UA’s staff room at the moment.

Even if he is already planning his revenge for the Eraserhead crack.

He’d told her about his appreciation for the hero in confidence, not to give her more teasing material.  Although maybe he really should have expected her to use the information against him somehow.  Especially given the way she had howled with literal knee-slapping laughter when she had found out.

“Eraser, meet my Izu-chan,” Emi says once she’s ushered him further into the room, pushing her hands out in Izuku’s direction like a game show host.  “My baby boy, the broccoli of my eye, the fruit of my loin-”

“Emi,” Izuku interrupts, trying his best to pretend like Eraserhead’s wide-eyed stare isn’t getting to him.  Izuku had really wanted to make a good first impression there, but Emi had, as always, chosen chaos.  He’d totally send her spiders in the mail if she hadn’t moved in with his mom a month ago.  Although her hero agency is still fair game…  “Please stop telling people you’re my father.”

“I’d never do that, Izu-chan,” Emi immediately protests.

Izuku gives her a pointed look.

“Anymore,” Emi hurries to clarify.  “I wouldn’t do that anymore.  Especially since we both know Nedzu’s your real dad.”

“I’ve told you a million times,” Izuku huffs, unable to help the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “my father lives somewhere in America.  Probably.”

“Only until Nedzu gets around to getting rid of him and adding himself to your birth certificate instead,” Emi declares.

Izuku goes to protest, stops, thinks about every meeting he’s had with Nedzu in the past few months, and then swallows his argument down.

It’s not exactly something he can consider completely outside the realm of possibilities.  As a matter of fact, now that Emi has brought it up, Izuku really should check his birth certificate when he gets home just to be certain.  Both the digitally archived one and the paper copy kept in his personal files in his locked and armored filing cabinet.

“Okay, I know Emi said she found you and all, which trust and believe I have so many questions about, ” Present Mic pipes up, seemingly vibrating with what looks a lot like delight for some reason, “but are you two actually related somehow?”

“Of course we are!” Emi declares before whipping around and jumping directly at Izuku.

Izuku catches her without really blinking, boosting her up to sit on the curve of his elbow so she can press their cheeks together and beam in the other hero’s direction.

“I’m his best friend, and he’ll soon have the added bonus of calling me mom!” Emi boasts.  “Wait, that’s perfect! Bonus Mom! Bonus Mother! Bother!  Yeah, I’m his Bother! Can’t you see the family resemblance?”

“You and Mom aren’t actually married,” Izuku reminds her yet again.

“Only a matter of time, Izu-chan!” Emi scrubs her hand roughly over the top of his head before hopping out of his arms.  “She’s playing hard to get, but I’m harder to get rid of.”

“Amen to that,” Izuku hears Eraserhead mutter.

“So let me get this right,” Midnight speaks up then, hands on her hips and an almost maliciously gleeful sort of look in her eyes.  “Not only is the famous Izu-chan not a six-year-old like we thought, instead he’s built out of 100% A Grade Japanese Beef, and he's also Dekiru?”

Izuku once again takes a second to wish Emi would stop talking about him like he’s in kindergarten or something.  She’d done the same thing at her hero agency.  When he’d shown up for the first time to take her to lunch, the staff had prepared a welcome basket for him filled with hero-themed sticker sheets, coloring books, candy, and even a limited edition Ms. Joke figurine.

Things had been a bit awkward when they had realized their mistake, but in the end, most of Emi’s co-workers had a similar sense of humor to hers.

Izuku had kept the basket of course, but that’s beside the point.

“Excuse you!” Emi barks out, voice stern as she matches Midnight’s stance and leans in her direction.  “Show my wife and son some respect!”

Midnight blinks, obviously taken a bit aback.

“This,” Emi reaches over to force one of Izuku’s arms up into a flexing position, “is obviously SSS Grade Japanese Beef!  He comes from angelic stock, so get it right!”

“I can’t take you anywhere, can I?” Izuku asks with a sigh as he tries to pull his arm up out of her grip.

Instead of letting go, Emi just wraps her hands around his bicep, pulls her feet up off the ground, and hangs from his arm like a child.

“Why do you do these things to me in front of new people?” Izuku shoots a pleading glance at the nearest unhidden camera.  He’s pretty sure that the rapidly blinking light beneath it is really just Morse code for Nedzu laughing at him.

“It’s not like I weigh anything to you,” Emi shoots back with a mischievous grin.  “You’re not even using your quirk.  Come on, use your freaky shadow tentacles and make a swing.  I’m sure everyone else would like to take you for a ride too.”

A low, rough noise from across the room has Izuku’s attention shooting back toward their audience, eyes immediately locking on Eraserhead, who is still staring at him.

“Oh, I know!” Emi’s grin is bright and blinding, but Izuku doesn’t trust it because he knows her.  “You and Eraser can have a tentacle fight as your first date.”

“He has/It’s a capture scarf,” Izuku and Eraserhead’s voices overlap.

They both pause and stare at each other.  The rest of the staff room is as silent as a held breath.

“See!” Emi crows, finally dropping to stand on her own feet and letting his arm go.  “You’ve already got that married brain thing going!  It’s fate!”

“Emi!” Izuku hisses, one hand coming up so he can bury his face in his palm.

“Izu-chan!” Emi beams back happily, twirling around to stand behind him.  Once she’s there, she plants both hands between his shoulders and begins to push.

Izuku lets her move him for the simple fact that he knows she won’t actually stop until she succeeds, no matter how long he tries to wait her out.

Emi pushes him across the room until Izuku is, much to his mortification, standing directly in front of Eraserhead, who has risen from his chair and moved to lean back against his desktop.

Then, because she’s physically and spiritually incapable of leaving well enough alone, Emi moves around Izuku to grab his right hand in hers and then reach her other hand out toward Eraserhead.

Who, much to Izuku’s surprise, sighs and rolls his eyes but actually uncrosses his arms and holds one hand out in Emi’s direction.

Emi shoots Eraserhead a knowing look for some reason.  Behind him, Izuku hears more than one person snicker.

Izuku feels his face flush when Emi presses his hand down into Eraserhead’s, palm to delightfully calloused palm.

“Dearly beloved!” Emi announces with all the pomp and circumstance of a variety show host.  “We have gathered here today to give my son, my baby boy, my sunshine battle broccoli chil-”

“You really live with this?” Eraserhead asks, head tipping in Emi’s direction.  “Willingly?”

“She grows on you,” Izuku half-explains, half-defends, while doing his best to block out Emi rambling out his various titles, both real and obviously made up by her on the spot.

“Like mold, I assume,” Eraserhead says, tone gruff, but Izuku doesn’t see any real malice in his expression.

Which, while Izuku loves and adores Emi, is beyond fair.

“Sorry she’s dragged you into,” Izuku pauses, glances at Emi, who has moved on to waxing poetic about his many and varied qualities, including how he is apparently ‘too good for this world, too pure’, and then back to Eraserhead, “whatever this is.”

“I’ve got idiots of my own, so I know how it is,” Eraserhead’s thumb rubs over the ridges of Izuku’s knuckles, expression filled with a long-standing but obviously fond sort of exasperation. “Unfortunately.”

Izuku can’t help but grin just a bit.

“I don’t know what Emi has said about me,” Izuku absently sends a strand of Blackwhip to swat at Emi when he hears the words ‘pure as the mountain snow and twice as ready to be plowed’ come out of her mouth, “but I’m a big fan of your work, Eraserhead.”

“Call me Shōta,” Eraserhead, Shōta, offers, his expression blank but eyes piercing and intent.

“Izuku then,” Izuku immediately returns, trying and failing to tamp down the jolt of giddy excitement that runs through him.

“-in holy matrimony to the one and only, Eraserhead!” Emi finally seems to be winding down.  “He’s got good jokes and I know he’ll treat my Izu-chan right.”

A pause.

Izuku and Shōta both stare at Emi.

Emi beams up at both of them.

Somewhere in the background, Present Mic makes a high-pitched wheezing sort of noise.

From the corner of his eye, Izuku catches on to the fact that Midnight has her phone up and is, knowing his luck, obviously recording this entire thing.

“Is-Is that it?” Izuku can’t help but ask even though he knows he shouldn’t bother.

All of the over-the-top titles and occasionally embarrassing descriptors she’d attached to him, and yet Shōta gets presented with a single sentence?  It’s unfair in a really odd and very Emi-coded kind of way.

“Of course not,” Emi shifts to place a hand on the backs of both of their shoulders and pushes.  “Now kiss.”

Neither Izuku nor Shōta budges.

Izuku brings his free hand up to rub at his temple.

Spiders in her hero agency mail and shaving cream in her boots at the next possible opportunity.

“I’m telling Mom that you’re trying to get rid of me,” Izuku, his other hand still clasped in Shōta’s, warns/threatens Emi.

“Joke’s on you,” Emi grins.  “I sent Inko a picture of Eraser’s jaw line weeks ago.  She can’t wait to have him over for family night.”

Shōta huffs out a rough little noise that Izuku tries not to pay too much attention to. 

“I can cry on command,” Izuku reminds her.

“Yeah,” Emi agrees, hands tucked behind her as she practically dances back a few feet, “but that’s Eraser’s job now.”

A pause.

Blackwhip and the grey lines of Shōta’s capture scarf both rush out, effortlessly weaving around each other as they snap at Emi’s feet.

Emi brays out another loud laugh.

“Married brain,” Emi singsongs as she hops out of the way and back toward the other heroes who have all huddled together.

“She’s not getting a key to our place,” Shōta says then, fingers twining with Izuku’s.

“I love her, but no,” Izuku agrees, absently squeezing Shōta’s hand in solidarity.  “Not that locks tend to really stop her anyway.”

Izuku pauses.

Replays what he’d just heard.

Blinks.

Turns his attention fully back toward Shōta.

“W-Wait, what?” Izuku flounders.

“She has spent the past few months offering me your hand in marriage,” Shōta grins then, a wide slash of teeth that Izuku likes more than he probably should.

Shōta steps forward further into Izuku’s space.

Izuku’s heart skips a beat.

“Now that you’re here,” Shōta’s voice goes low and warm, “I’m ready to get to know my fiancé.”

Oh, Izuku thinks faintly, ears hot and mouth dry, maybe the joke really was on me.