Chapter Text
Aizawa loves his husband, he does.
It’s just when he gets home from a long day at UA and he has papers to grade and things to do around the house, and he sees his husband of ten long years standing in the living room, arms thrown up in surrender and face guilty, Aizawa wants to run away.
What’s worse is their son, their little troublemaker Shinsou, is standing beside Hizashi with an equally guilty expression and his arms crossed in front of him. They are both a little singed like they’d run through a burning building and Shinsou’s capture scarf is in four pieces on the floor. Hizashi’s sunglasses are broken but still on his face like the idiot had taken a punch to the face and didn’t notice the glass falling out afterwards.
Good riddance, Aizawa thinks. Those gaudy yellow sunglasses were getting on his last nerve lately. Hizashi had even worn them to bed once.
“Let me explain!” Is the first thing out of his husband’s mouth, because of course it is .
“Zashi, your shirt is falling off,” Aizawa responds as Hizashi’s button up slowly falls from his shoulders. No surprise, seeing as the buttons were missing and part of his sleeve had gotten ripped off.
Hizashi watches it fall, making no attempt to catch it. “Oh. Well, it wasn’t my favorite anyway.”
Which is a lie because Aizawa knows that Hizashi loves all of his glittery, obnoxious button ups with the kind of love a billionaire has towards stocks. That’s when Aizawa realizes that, whatever this is, it’s serious.
“Are either of you hurt?” Chiyo asks from behind Aizawa, and Aizawa remembers that his husband had called him home from an after-school faculty meeting ( “and bring Recovery Girl, Sho. We’re going to need her help.” ) Aizawa had never raced home so fast as he did then, fueled by the terrifying thought that either his son or husband was in a dire enough position to need Recovery Girl rushed to their location.
Their location being the Yamada-Aizawa household’s living room where both his son and husband looked like they’ve been through the wringer but turned out essentially uninjured.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” Shinsou brushes off before turning to the couch across the room, “but he needs some serious help. We tried to stop the bleeding but it’s not looking good.”
“I’ve been home for a solid two minutes and you’ve just now told me there’s someone bleeding out on our couch?” Aizawa exclaims as he helps Chiyo over to the sofa.
A kid. There’s a literal child splayed across his living room sofa with a bullet wound in his side that’s been hastily wrapped in what’s left of Shinsou’s scarf and various other smaller (but no less nauseating) wounds across his body. He’s 14, 15 at most, and Aizawa is terrified that he’s going to watch another child die.
Without delay, Chiyo sets the kid’s arm and cleans some of the dirtier wounds. “I’m going to unwrap him and get his shirt off for better access. I need you to hold this gauze to the wound, Aizawa, and keep pressure on it, okay?”
Aizawa nods uselessly as he takes the clean gauze and waits until Chiyo unwraps Shinsou’s scarf to press it into the boy’s wound. He feels horrible for doing it because just as Aizawa does, the boy groans and his face scrunches up in pain.
“I put him to sleep,” Shinsou says from somewhere over Aizawa’s shoulder. “So he shouldn’t wake up for another hour or so.”
“Looks like he still feels it, though.”
Eventually, they are able to maneuver their patient’s shirt off.
And the whole room takes a sharp breath in.
If Aizawa felt horrified by this situation earlier, there is no word for how he feels now that he can see the boy’s bare chest. Even the top Pro-Heroes don’t have scars like this. There’s burn scars and rope burns across his wrists and shoulders, thin scars spaced out evenly from his waist to his torso like the lines on a ruler and one giant ‘Y’ like an autopsy dissection scar (no, it is an autopsy scar and who the fuck was rummaging around in this kid’s intestines?). Some scars are older than others but all of them look painful.
“Keep the pressure,” Chiyo warns, and although she’s seen much worse through her former job as a support hero, Aizawa hears her voice waver slightly.
Vaguely, Aizawa notices Hizashi moving Shinsou across the room so that their son wouldn’t see someone his age on the metaphorical surgeon’s table.
They get the bullet out and Chiyo sews the wound closed, finally dropping a Healing Kiss on the boy’s forehead. At first, Aizawa had been angry she didn’t start with her Quirk, but he realized quickly that if the boy healed with the bullet in him or his arm broken in an angle, they’d have more problems than before.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Aizawa starts carefully after the boy’s condition returned to a state Chiyo felt comfortable with and Recovery Girl took her leave, leaving behind some painkillers and gauze. “And then you two are going to explain to me why I just had to help sew up a child in my own living room and WHY you thought to bring him here instead of calling for AN AMBULANCE .”
Aizawa very rarely feels the need to raise his voice but there’s a half-dead child in his living room and blood on his hands and he needs to calm down before he does or says something.
Hizashi doesn’t pause. “There’s a good explanation, I promise, Sho. Just… go get cleaned up, I’ll put a shirt on. Shinsou, if you could keep an eye on the lil’ patient so he doesn't wake up alone?”
“Of course,” Shinsou agrees, which is the fastest Aizawa has ever seen his son agree to any request.
To make his day even worse, Aizawa gets approximately two minutes of hot water before the pipes give an ominous groan and he’s pelted by freezing cold spurts. He’s shivering and miserable when he gets out, and he runs straight into his husband in the doorway.
“He has multiple Quirks,” is the first thing Hizashi says as Aizawa steps out of the shower. “We were walking home and Shinsou saw the kid stumble into an alleyway not far from here and I told Shinsou to stay at the entrance of the alley while I went to go help the kid. And, and I messed up. I tried to grab the kid and he got scared, lashed out. Shouta, he used more Quirks than I could even count.”
Aizawa keeps silent as he waits for more of the story. His towel is slipping and he wants to put on a couple of sweaters and be done with this.
“He was obviously scared out of his mind, yelling all this stuff about ‘not going back’ and all this and I kept messing up, scaring him more. Shinsou finally had enough of me getting set on fire from the kid throwing these balls of green goop, and he called to him and got him to go to sleep.”
He is starting to see why his husband didn’t call the authorities. “Other than the green… flame balls, what Quirks did he have?”
“Invisibility and intangibility, those neither lasted long with how bad his wounds were. Initially, I’d thought he was mimicking my Quirk because he screamed so high pitched that my ears hurt. Shinsou had only told me afterwards that the scream had brought him to his knees when he was still at the other end of the alley. So, uh, that’s fun. Maybe super strength, his punches hurt way too much for a kid his weight. Oh! And also, the kid froze my shoe to a dumpster at one point, so ice abilities too.”
Invisibility, Intangibility, Voice Manipulation, heightened strength, burning projectiles, and ice powers. That’s… a lot of power for a 14 year old to have. If the kid had been unharmed and fully aware of his surroundings, there is no doubt that they would’ve needed more than Present Mic to take him down.
So yeah, calling the police would only have made a bad situation so much worse. All Might and the Hero Commission would have gotten involved, and as loyal as Aizawa is to his job and his county, he doesn’t like the idea of a child being locked up somewhere because he was a statistically impossibility.
“Do you think…?” Aizawa starts and Hizashi shrugs.
“I don’t know. All-For-One is dead and there’s been no sign that his Quirk was inherited. As for an experiment, maybe LoV finally achieved what they wanted with the Nomu?”
The thought of another All-For-One makes Aizawa shudder but he knows that the villain is dead and no one inherited the man’s power before his death. Saving graces.
Aizawa thinks about the kid’s chest. “You saw those scars. If not the LoV, somebody experimented on that kid.” ‘Experimented’ is now Aizawa’s least favorite word.
“And if I’m right and he ran, there’s going to be someone coming for him,” Hizashi reasons. “Maybe I was wrong and we should’ve just called an ambulance, but if he was running from the LoV, they wouldn’t hesitate to raid a hospital to get him. Or--or!--he wakes up in a hospital, freaks out and someone gets hurt or the Hero Commision locks him up for having multiple unregistered Quirks or--”
“Zashi,” Aizawa interrupts, taking his husband’s hands in his. “I get it, it’s okay. You did good.”
The way his husband just slumps at his words is an addicting feeling but that’s something for Future Aizawa to think about.
“Now let’s go. Shinsou’s going to need some help when our guest wakes up.”
~
Aizawa was right. Shinsou did need their help when the kid woke up, just not how they thought he would.
When Aizawa got clothed and Hizashi changed his glasses (the blonde keeps a rack of spares in the back of their closet, Aizawa learns to his horror: married 10 years and you think you know a guy), they found the boys sitting side by side on the living room couch.
“Shinsou,” Aizawa starts carefully, making sure he has a grip on his capture scarf.
Shinsou gives his dads a cursory nod but doesn’t turn away from the boy at his side. Awake and seemingly aware, the boy is leaning back against the couch and has his focus on Shinsou.
“Dads, this is Danny. Danny, these are my dads Aizawa and Yamada,” Shinsou says calmly as he gestures between him and his couchmate.
Newly-named-Danny looks up. And wow, Aizawa didn’t know that shade of blue was possible, much less practical as an eye color. Maybe it’s part of his Quirk.
It’s a European name and beside the black hair, Danny has all European features. Obviously, without Danny speaking, it’s hard to tell if he has an accent, but Aizawa gets the sinking feeling that this kid is far away from home. Shinsou would know, seeing as he and Danny were talking before the adults came into the room, but unsurprisingly, the boy isn’t talking anymore.
Danny waves, his focus entirely pinned on Hizashi. Aizawa sees the fear and uneasiness there and he sees the way his husband deflates like an overblown balloon at the stare. Hizashi loves children, loves entertaining children, loves making children laugh, and it hurts his little blonde heart when children are sad or scared around him.
“Nice to meet you, Danny.” Aizawa is quick to cut in because he needs to settle their misunderstanding or Danny is just going to bolt at the first sign of… well, anything. “My husband says he found you in an alleyway a couple blocks away. I am sorry, we got a family friend to take a look at your wounds so that’s why your shirt is gone. Hizashi, could you go grab one of Shinsou’s shirts for Danny here?”
Hizashi takes the hint and almost bolts from the room to get Danny a shirt.
“I’m going to make some tea. Do either of you want some? Shinsou? Danny?” Aizawa asks over his shoulder as he moves to their stove. If he puts the pressure on this kid, they aren’t going to get very far. Alternatively, if he plays like he doesn’t have an interest in what’s going on, maybe he can convince Danny that they don’t want anything from him.
“Sounds good, Dad.”
Predictably, Danny doesn’t answer the offer but Aizawa pours four cups anyway. The mugs are mismatched and Aizawa can’t help but feel proud that they seem to represent his patchwork family: lonely pieces from sets long gone, pulled together to be a set of their own.
Gods, he’s becoming a sap in the ripe old age of 30.
He blames Hizashi, of course. Aizawa used to be well on the track of being a celebrated pro-hero and now he’s comforting children and making tea on a Wednesday. (He’s still a celebrated pro-hero, just now it comes with a loud, radio-show host husband and an angsty son and less cause to mope about in his old sleeping bag.)
Aizawa just barely makes it out of the kitchen with the mugs as Hizashi comes back with one of Shinsou’s comfort shirts. It’s two sizes too big and well-worn and Aizawa sees a flicker of relief in Danny’s eyes when he slips it on.
“Here,” Aizawa passes a mug to the boy after he gets situated, letting his husband and son pick up their own. “Chamomile with a little honey. Should help after the wild day you’ve had.”
To his credit, Danny doesn’t refuse the drink outright but he does give it a cursory look over as if staring at the amber liquid would tell him whether or not he’s being drugged. After a long moment--and watching Aizawa take a swig from his--Danny finally takes a sip.
“Thank you,” Danny whispers and Aizawa’s heart sinks. That’s an American accent. Perfect Japanese, but an American accent nonetheless.
“Danny, I’d like to apologize for scaring you earlier in the alley. I obviously didn’t properly go about trying to get your attention and I’m sorry.”
Danny nods at Hizashi’s apology but doesn’t say anything else. He’s now drinking the tea in earnest and by the time Aizawa finishes his third sip, the boy has emptied his cup. He seems to only realize what he’s done afterwards, and there’s something like longing on his face.
Shinsou notices too, of course, and he downs the rest of his tea in one swig. “Wow, I’m thirsty. Was there any hot water left, Dad?”
Aizawa loves his son. “Enough for at least a couple more cups.”
“Great.” Shinsou stands, taking both his and Danny’s mugs with him. “You’ll have to help me finish the pot, Danny, or else Pops will try to reheat it later and that never goes well.”
“Hey!” Hizashi protests, “I am perfectly capable of reheating water.”
Aizawa pats his husband’s hand lightly. “Sure you are, sweetheart.” The sarcasm pulls Aizawa’s lips up in a smirk and he gives Danny a playful wink. “Sure you are.”
“I feel attacked.”
Aizawa’s over-exaggerated eye roll is rewarded with a small smile from Danny.
A few minutes later, Shinsou comes back with two full mugs and hands Danny’s over.
There’s a long stretch of silence as they sit there, each involved in themselves enough to relax and drink at their own pace. Aizawa notices Danny copying Shinsou as he only takes a sip when his son does, and Aizawa adds ‘potential water deprivation’ to the list of whatever traumas Danny experienced before he came to them. Aizawa has seen it before in kidnapping victims: they’re scared of being denied more food or water if they look too enthusiastic about it and so they match their captor’s pace in an effort to look subdued.
He better find out whoever had this child soon because he needs to hit something.
“Why… why am I here?”
Aizawa looks up. “Huh?”
“You could’ve called the cops, or even just left me there,” Danny continues and his accent becomes clearer as he talks. “But you decided to bring me here? To your home?” Where I could hurt you , the question translates to.
“Did you want me to call the cops?” Hizashi asks instead of answering his question. “We still can.”
“No!” Is the immediate, not-all-surprising response. “But you know--just, you saw…”
They saw his Quirks.
Aizawa can only imagine what is going through the kid’s mind at that moment, as the fear is clear on the kid’s face. He looks stricken and disbelieving, staring at them like he’s waiting for a shoe to drop.
“Danny,” Aizawa leans forward in his seat, moving his free hand to rest on his husband’s knee. “I’m a school teacher and a father, as is my husband. As far as we’re concerned, you’re just a kid who needs help and we’d like to give that help if you’ll let us.”
“You’re a weird teacher,” Danny says.
Aizawa laughs. “Yeah, I am.”
“I got an extra pad in my closet if you’d like to crash in my room,” Shinsou offers as he gathers the empty mugs. “Seeing as Pops can’t cook and Dad is already dressed for bed, wanna order takeout?” This question is angled toward Danny and the kid looks to Aizawa for permission before nodding.
“Use my phone,” Hizashi says as he throws his phone at Shinsou. “It has my card.”
“Thanks, Pops.”
The kids gather themselves up and Shinsou throws Danny’s arm over his to help him to his room.
“And I can cook!” Hizashi yells at their retreating backs.
“Sure you can, sweetheart.”