Chapter Text
“Remind me why I agreed to this?” Shouta muttered to Hizashi as they, Izuku, and Katsuki waited for everyone to join them at the head of the trail.
“Because it’ll be fun!” Hizashi made sure their voice was Extra Cheerful, partially to troll their soon-to-be-husband and partially just because they were excited. The whole family was ready for a night of ‘ghost hunting-’ really just running around in the woods at this point, the teens had all mostly moved on from wanting to be true blue ghost hunters as their career.
Honestly, they’d already been moving in that direction when Shouta and Izuku first encountered them in the woods; teenagers were gonna teenage and go through about a million phases. It was good for them to explore though, and they’d picked up a lot about safety when hiking and urban exploring, various forms of technology, and Hitoshi got really into video editing as a consequence too.
If widening their horizons and developing a love of nature were the lasting consequences, none of the adults were particularly upset about it. They were even having their excursion that day during normal daylight hours, much to Shouta’s relief. It was one thing to traipse through the woods with an entire group of people (all the teens plus even more parents), quite another to do so at night.
“You’re going to show us all the mushrooms, right?” Izuku asked, the fifteen year old popping up at Shouta’s side like a green jack-in-the-box.
“Of course I’m going to show you the mushrooms, it’s the perfect season for them.” Shouta reached out to tug on a green curl, causing the teen to stick his tongue out at him. “Did you bring your guide book?”
“Yeah.” Izuku grinned, tapping at one of the pockets on the cargo pants he preferred to hike in. (All those pockets were good for anything he needed to bring home when they were specifically gathering ingredients somewhere. He knew the rule for normal hikes though- take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.)
For his birthday in July, only a few weeks post the Stain interaction, they’d taken him out to an outdoorsy store to get whatever gear he wanted. Izuku said that’s what he wanted, but since Shouta would’ve done that anyways on account of sorcerers tending to spend a lot of time with/around nature (you can stop with the homebody jokes now, Hizashi), Shouta and Hizashi surprised him with a trip further north to a reserve that’d been set up specifically for sorcerers to do their thing in without having to worry about too many out of the loop civilians wandering in.
They’d specifically gotten permission for the entire crew to come for a day trip, now they were just waiting for everyone to arrive. They had to wait for the next sort of ‘friends and family day’ that the reserve did every couple months- time they blocked out specifically for sorcerers to bring non-sorcerer friends where there wasn’t anything major happening. It wasn’t the first time an ‘iou/when xyz thing comes out this year I’m getting it for you) gift anyone had ever gotten, and it definitely wouldn’t be the last, but either way Izuku was over the moon about it.
It was the least they could do, especially after Izuku surprised them both on Hizashi’s birthday with the request to be formally adopted. They got the paperwork submitted as soon as possible, but even with Nedzu’s help greasing the wheels they were still waiting on confirmation even in mid-October.
“Just be careful not to get any of the other idiots lost in the woods again Nerd.” Katsuki grumbled, not far behind Izuku. “Still can’t believe they think they can be heroes with us.”
“They’re gonna make great heroes, Kacchan!” Izuku immediately defended the rest of the friend group, turning to face his boyfriend. That whole conversation devolved into one they’d been having ever since Shouta announced he’d finally let Nedzu badger him into teaching at UA so he could help supervise Izuku’s training.
The whole Stain situation four months prior proved what Shouta knew the entire time- Izuku wasn’t just incredibly intelligent, he was also incredibly powerful. More than one sorcerer had come out of the woodwork after the storm to make sure everything was okay- his power burst had been felt far and wide. It’d been a long time since anyone had seen anything like that; it’d been a long time since a kid without training just exploded.
The burst was even picked up on radar when the storm started developing a super-cell out of the blue. Izuku was going to be a fantastic pro when he grew up, but Shouta didn’t want anyone else teaching him how to use the fake quirk they’d registered after the Stain incident- Environment Manipulation. They kept it vague on purpose to give Izuku as much leeway as possible, but one thing about registering a quirk so late did work in their favor- late quirks like that were almost always far more powerful than other quirks, even if they weren’t forced.
With Environment Manipulation, Izuku had a lot of options at his fingertips. Everything from creating rain (which was normally a tall ask, but something Shouta had no doubt Izuku was capable of with practice), to force field type physical wards, to the classic, nearly stereotypical fireball.
Kids who grew up mastering their powers and fake quirks could usually manage along under ‘quirk’ counseling, even in heroics classes. With the intense level of power Izuku was able to summon and how little formal training he’d have compared to others, it was decided Shouta would just take over the history class opening up and oversee Izuku’s ‘quirk’ training himself. It had the added benefit of making Nedzu happy (which in turn annoyed Shouta, but then again their sibling-style relationship was a mystery to most people outside it) and helping get the HPSC off his back after he killed Stain in nearly cold blood.
They weren’t interested in jailing him, luckily, but their recruitment attempts had grown… exceedingly exuberant.
He understood, sort of. On the one hand the one guy they knew of that somehow figured out immortality but had been nothing but calm for over a hundred and fifty years suddenly up and killed a man, that probably made a few people nervous. Especially since everyone involved knew Shouta was stronger than them for the sheer fact he had practically an untold amount of energy stores lying around and had been around long enough to forget more about sorcery than they’d ever have the chance to even learn.
On the other hand, if he was willing to go after Stain what was stopping him from just becoming a pro hero full stop? It wasn’t like he’d have to worry about replacing his identity every so often, they’d be able to take care of that for him, and with his power and inability to permanently die, he’d be able to do so much good!
Except he didn’t want that. He didn’t even want to be immortal. He wanted to read good books, pet good cats, kiss Hizashi, and find a way to break his curse. If it took working for the rat to get them off his back, well then that was just the lesser of two evils. He could deal with Nedzu stealing him as well as his soon-to-be husband and son for three years.
Regardless, the moment the extended friend group found out about the eccentric, grumpy sorcerer teaching at the school they all immediately wanted in. Apparently that was a sight they just couldn’t miss. Shouta was ever so pleased to be such a strong influence on the educations of the youth.
He was also ever so pleased with the stupid certification courses Nedzu was having him speed run so he could actually teach at the school starting next April. They were incredibly aggravating (partially because they were on the laptop and Nedzu enjoyed taking the piss out of him by trying to hack it while he was studying); Shouta was glad for the chance to get some of that out of his system in the woods once everyone got there.
(Don’t mind the complaining, Hizashi kind of had a point when they said Shouta sometimes just liked the sound of his own voice. Really he just loved a good, cathartic bitching session. And being grumpy, if he had to fit the stereotype.)
Twenty minutes later everyone finally showed up, and they were able to get the trek started.