Chapter Text
Aizawa Shouta chased the shoplifter through the quiet night. Normally, he’d have caught his target by now but this guy had a speed quirk. It was difficult to erase his quirk when he couldn’t even see the asshole. He was relying on his hearing over his eyesight at this point to even keep track of where he was.
He turned the corner onto a run-down residential street just in time to see the thief’s foot disappearing into a house. Approaching the building, he could see that it was probably condemned. The door was off its hinges, not broken, simply unable to be supported by the rotting wood frame.
Creeping forward cautiously, he entered the house. The closed quarters could negate the thief’s quirk enough to capture him, but the guy still had a gun. Shouta had to be careful.
“Come at me, little bitch!” a voice rang out, sounding like it belonged to a child. Shouta’s blood ran cold. Was there a civilian in here after all? He sprinted in the direction he heard the voice coming from. Turning into what used to be a living room, he saw the thief pointing his gun at a kid.
Luckily, that meant he was distracted. Shouta attacked, wrapping the thief up in his scarf and turning off his quirk in one quick movement. The gun fell to the floor, unfired. Shouta counted his blessings that it didn’t go off from the impact.
“You okay, kid?” he asked the boy. The kid shrugged, watching Shouta with suspicion. Shouta ignored the kid for a moment to call the police. After they had arrived to collect the thief, slapping quirk-canceling handcuffs on him and bagging his weapon for evidence, Shouta went back inside to talk to the kid.
He was a little surprised to see that the kid hadn’t run off. Instead, he was leaning against the wall, sitting on a pile of blankets and clothes. A makeshift bed, Shouta realized.
“Do you live here?” Shouta asked, alerting the boy to his presence.
“What’s it to you?” The boy asked with a level of animosity that sounded wrong in a child’s voice. Shouta shook his head. The kid could be a runaway with good reason. He could do more harm than good turning the kid in. But at the same time…
“Let me get this straight,” the boy watched him, green eyes guarded. “There was someone in your house tonight.”
The boy’s mask slipped for a moment, clearly not expecting that. “Um, yes?”
“They were probably dangerous. I mean, they had a weapon,” Shouta said sternly.
“Yeah…” the boy gave Shouta a confused look.
“And you, no offense, are an unarmed, uncoordinated child,” Shouta pointed out.
The boy’s nose crinkled, slightly offended. “Yeah, I guess,” he admitted bitterly.
“So what possessed you to shout ‘come at me, little bitch?’” Shouta asked, exasperated.
“I, uh…” the boy mumbled, looking at his hands in his lap.
“Do you have some kind of flashy quirk or something?” Shouta tried, hoping to figure out the source of this kid’s stupid bravery.
“Not really, no,” the kid said softly, his voice cracking slightly. Shouta faltered at that.
“Then why antagonize him?” Shouta asked gently. Something was off here.
“Why not?” the kid shrugged.
“He could have killed you,” Shouta said slowly, driving in his point.
“It’s not like it matters.” And there it was. This kid had a death wish.
Shouta sighed. “What are you doing out here kid? Are you running from something?”
The kid stayed silent but Shouta pressed. “If someone at home hurt you, I can--”
“This is my home,” the kid snapped, cutting off the older man.
“Really?” Shouta said skeptically, looking around the room.
“I’ve been here two years now,” the kid said, green eyes blazing defiantly.
“Before that?” Shouta prompted. The kid rolled his eyes.
“Before that, I slept on the street. This place was condemned when I found it. It’s fair game.” He glared at Shouta, daring him to argue with that. Shouta ran a hand through his long hair, frustrated with the conversation.
“Where are your parents?” he asked, barely keeping his voice level.
“Hell if I know,” the kid muttered, defiant attitude vanishing to make way for something sadder.
“How long have you been on your own?” Shouta asked, softening instantly. He watched the kid hold his hands out in front of himself to count , and god if that isn’t a bad sign.
“Eight years?” the kid supplied hesitantly after a few minutes.
“And you’re how old?” The kid in front of him was young. To be alone eight years already, he would have had to end up like this at an insanely young age. How did he not die?
“Fourteen.” Shouta’s mind reeled at that, doing the math in his head. Six. He would have been six. How did he not die?
“Are your parents…?” Shouta trailed off, unsure how to ask if he understood death when he was six.
“Alive? Sure. I lost track of them about three years ago when they moved,” the kid answered easily.
“Hold on. You’ve been living on the street for eight years and knew where your parents were for most of that time?” The more he heard, the more confused he got.
The kid gave him an intense look, evaluating him. Shouta accepted the scrutiny, waiting to see what he would say next. The kid must have found what he was looking for because he sighed and opened his mouth to speak. What he said next shocked the hero. “I’m quirkless.”
“I was diagnosed quirkless when I was four. My father held out hope that the doctor was wrong and tried to… encourage a quirk to develop. When I was six and still showed no signs of a quirk, he gave up. One day he told me and my mom to get in the car. He drove us for hours, through many prefectures. Then he stopped and told me to get out.”
Shouta couldn’t mask the horror that showed on his face. The kid gave him a tense smile. “It took me a few days but I got back home. When my mom opened the door she cried. My father came to the door when he heard her and he slapped me. Told me never to come back.”
The kid chuckled suddenly. “Can you believe I stayed in the area anyway so that I wouldn’t miss school?” If he attended school regularly, that explains how he wasn’t found out by way of truancy.
“In eight years, no one noticed that you were homeless?” Shouta questioned him.
“Well, a few times they did. Police picked me up, sent me to an orphanage. I wanted to stay, especially the one winter I was brought there, but they kicked me out,” the kid replied.
“They as in… the people who ran the orphanage?” Shouta asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. Quirkless kids are bad for business. They didn’t want me to ruin the other kids’ chances. The police didn’t care much either. They never said anything about the orphanage kicking me out. They just brought me back because protocol said they had to,” the kid said mirthlessly.
“Shit, kid,” Shouta’s mind raced as he tried to think of what to do. “Do you… do you want to come with me?”
“With you?” the guarded look reappeared on the kid’s face.
“Live with me,” Shouta clarified taking a few steps forward.
“Not that kind of kid.” Green eyes tracked Shouta and he stopped, trying to figure out what the kid meant. When the kid drew his knees up to his chest protectively, Shouta realized.
“Oh, god no. I don’t mean like…” Shouta paused for a second. “Have people propositioned you?”
“That’s not what I’d call it but yeah,” the kid glared at him. Shouta would unpack that statement another time.
“I wouldn’t do anything to you. It’s just not safe for you to be out here and you’re reckless, apparently.” The kid had the decency to look a little guilty for his earlier ‘come at me’ statement.
“Going with you wouldn’t necessarily protect me. You could hurt me, regardless of what you say. Plus if police pick me up for any reason, I would just be sent back to the orphanage and then inevitably kicked out again,” the kid argued.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but I understand I’ll need to earn your trust. As for the rest of that, what if I could make it so you’d be returned to me,” Shouta asked.
“And how would you do that?” the kid scoffed.
“I’d adopt you,” Shouta answered plainly. The kid looked at him with wide eyes.
“You’d adopt a quirkless kid?” the kid asked, disbelieving.
“You’re a kid that needs a home. I don’t care about quirks,” Shouta countered. “So come with me?” He held a hand out to the kid.
The kid glanced at his outstretched hand. “No.” Shouta let his hand fall back to his side. “Prove it first. Words don’t mean anything.”
“I could just take you. That’s an action,” Shouta teased. The kid smirked.
“No, you couldn’t.” Shouta raised an eyebrow. “You’re quirk won’t work on me since I’m quirkless. And since I know the layout of this house and the surrounding neighborhood better than you, I could get out of here faster than you could catch me in those ribbons... Eraserhead.”
“First, it’s a scarf, not ribbons. Second, how do you know what my quirk is? It hasn’t been published,” Shouta demanded. If it had been published somewhere, he needed to get it taken down. He was an underground hero for a reason.
“That guy was fast when he ran in here. After your eyes glowed, he wasn’t. Your hero name is Eraser head. I guessed,” the kid said flatly.
“That’s a pretty good guess.” The kid shrugged. “How about this? I’ll go get you a burner phone from the nearest convenience store and program my number in it. I won’t be as worried about leaving you here if I know you can contact me in an emergency. Tomorrow I’ll talk to someone who can help figure out the adoption process.”
“Sounds fair,” the kid said, nodding. Shouta was quick getting the phone on the off chance that the kid would bolt.
“Aizawa Shouta?” the kid asked, reading the only contact name in the phone.
“That’s my actual name. If I’m going to adopt you, you should know it. What about you?”
“Midoriya Izuku,” the kid said, texting Shouta so his number could be saved.