Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey, I’m heading home! You going to be okay?” Izuku calls as he walks down the hall of the half built clubhouse. Mashi sits in her designated room and she looks back at the call, seeing her friend pausing in her doorway, which was still lacking a door, and looking in on her.

“Yeah, yeah!” she says with a grin and nod, her old timey comic books scattered all around her on the floor as she tries to organize them and put them on her new bookshelf. She was running out of room at her own house, so this was a perfect place to bring some of her stuff.

“Hey! Look at this real quick!” the redhead says before Izuku can leave and she grabs one of the comic books and holds it out to show her friend. It’s an issue of the Green Arrow. “Maybe you could make some dope ass bow and arrow invention like this?”

“I could…” Izuku says thoughtfully, taking the comic book carefully with his real hand. “I’d have to learn how to shoot it, though. Could take a long time.” Mashi pouts but can only agree. Izuku was right, like he always was.

“You can borrow that one anyway, if you want,” the girl says, pointing at the comic book. Izuku was bound to still want to research the idea now that it was in his head. The boy smiles brightly at her, nodding.

“Thanks Mashi! I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stay too long,” he says, turning to leave.

“Bye bye, Zuzu!” she calls after him then gets back to work.

It doesn’t take long, she already has the books half ready as is, and she takes a few minutes to slip them into the bookshelf. It was an old thing they’d scavenged, but Mashi had gotten help from Hatsume and her sculpting knowledge to refurbish it.

Her room, and most of the clubhouse, was still being worked on, but it was slowly becoming much nicer and much fuller. Mashi’s own room had been filled with some of her spare movie posters and she had gone and bought a bunch of discount pillows and blankets from a local thrift store to pile on one side of her room as a sitting spot. Or a bundle up spot, if it got cold. She hated the cold.

It was sparse, but it would do for now. She would be able to fill it in as time went on.

Mashi heads out of her room once she’s done, hands in her pockets as she makes her way down the hall. She passes Katsuki’s room, which still doesn’t have a door but he has had the brilliant idea to put up a curtain, and heads for Izuku’s biggest workroom.

She had left her gunstaff in there for her friend to look over it and hoped now it was ready for her to take it back.

As she walks in she can’t help but marvel at all of Izuku’s new inventions scattered everywhere. The room is mostly white with a few blue designs here and there, and is an open, free space with desks lining the walls. In the middle sits what looks like a metal horse skeleton with robotic guts strewn about it. Hanging from chains on the ceiling is a massive, more complete looking machine that resembles a bird of some kind.

Izuku had been getting these done quick, lately, and Mashi couldn’t help but be blown away yet again by her friend’s brilliance. He really was something else.

She spots her gunstaff propped up on one of the desks and shuffles over, grinning eagerly when she gets to it and lifts it up. It looked… normal? She wasn’t sure what she should be looking for. She had been learning a lot about how to build these, but she was still starting out and was not a fast learner. Had Izuku worked on it? He hadn’t mentioned having done so…

Mashi shrugs and takes it anyway.

Sitting one desk over is a new invention Izuku had been working on for some time now and the redhead moves over to it, curiously looking it over. It looked much more refined than the giant bots behind her. It resembled an owl, big and round, and a flat face with huge, circular eyes. Mashi leans over to look into the eyes, grinning and cackling at her morphed reflection in the lenses.

She peaks to the side now and sees a sheet of regular paper with Izuku’s handwriting on it.

“Oh my god, Zuzu…” the redhead grins even bigger as she leans over the paper, reading it. On it there reads “Observing Winged” followed by a list of possible words starting with L. Apparently he was trying to make an acronym for OWL, even Mashi could piece that together, but was having issues thinking of the last word. What a nerd.

Feeling playful the girl sets her gunstaff on the table then grabs a pen and writes on the paper, “Loo-tenant,” and circles it three times. She had absolutely no idea how to spell lieutenant correctly, but Izuku should be able to understand what she was trying to say.

“Observing Winged Lieutenant,” she says aloud, testing how it sounds, and nods to herself. Lieutenant sounded so official and important. Izuku would thank her later.

She hoped. She really wasn’t sure. When it came to stuff like this she was a little clueless. Even naming things had her feeling out of depth. The only thing she’d actually named had been the gunstaff, and that was based off of some old video game she liked.

The sudden onset of insecurity hits her like a train and she sighs. This happened often when she was alone, the uncontrollable thoughts creeping in and banging at the insides of her head. She didn’t get it, and she didn’t like it, but she sure wasn’t going to tell anyone about it either. They’d probably think she was even crazier or dumber than she already was.

Mashi grabs her gunstaff, ready to just head home now, but as she’s pulling it off the table she isn’t paying attention and she knocks the OWL right over with a loud CLANG!

The redhead jumps with a yelp, the shock of it making her forget her internal battle, and scrambles to grab the invention.

“Please don’t be broken. Please don’t be broken. Please don’t be broken,” she mumbles to herself frantically, setting the robotic bird onto the table and looking it over. It didn’t look dented or scratched. It had to be made of the metallic Hera, able to withstand all kinds of impact forc—

The OWL suddenly spreads its wings with a snap and Mashi shrieks, tripping backwards and falling onto her butt. Okay, maybe it wasn’t made of Hera? Was it busted?

The machine’s eyes click on, glowing faintly, and it flaps its wings and shoots off into the air without hesitation, some kind of compact turbines on its wings keeping it airborne.

The girl springs back onto her feet, eyes wide and panicked as she tracks the robot bird in the air, the machine circling around randomly, dipping and rising, spiraling and weaving. She needed to catch it and stop it immediately. She’d done something very wrong and she needed to fix it!

She grabs her gunstaff. On the head of this particular version is a flat, pointed piece that curve backwards and forms something of a hook, perfect for grabbing at things at a distance.

Mashi scrambles to her feet, slipping a few times on the clean floor, and when the OWL is swooping low enough she leaps, holding out her gunstaff, and hooks one of the wings. “Yes!” she cheers, but the joy is short lived as the machine apparently has much more torque to it than she realized.

“You fucker!” she shrieks as it pulls her backwards and rams her into something big and hard. For a split second she’s dazed, but her body moves on autopilot, using the hard thing against her back to anchor her, then both of her hands to pull her gunstaff back down and grab hold of the OWL. She shrieks curses and gibberish as the machine flaps in her face while she desperately tries to find an off switch.

It takes a while but she’s certain Izuku had to have installed something that will turn off the OWL somewhere on it. She smacks at the machine’s back, it’s head, but then she sees it, right on the back of the neck: a tiny little button. She pokes violently at it until finally she hits it and the OWL promptly stops moving. Its wings snap back to its sides, pinching Mashi’s finger and making her jump and snatch her hand back.

The room falls silent save for Mashi’s heavy breathing, her eyes wide as she stares ahead, adrenaline still pumping through her veins. The whole thing had hardly lasted a minute, but it felt like it had been hours.

With a heavy breath out the girl finally relaxes, sliding down whatever she had been flung into and landing on something that clicks under her weight.

Mashi freezes. What had just clicked? She slowly looks down and lifts her butt just enough to get a look at a foot pedal that sits beneath her, scowling as she then follows the cords connecting it to the object behind her.

The horse skeleton robot stands there, machinery beginning to whir and click into action. Its head had been lowered, like it was feeding on grass, and now it begins to rise and turn glowing, blue eyes towards Mashi.

“Please don’t,” the girl whispers like a plea to the machine, not entirely sure what she’s asking it not to do, but then the eyes are suddenly flashing red and a robotic voice is saying, “Threat Detected,” and Mashi has to dive away as the machine swings towards her, cables and cords ripping from its body.

“GOD DAMN IT!” She shrieks, OWL held tight under her left arm like a football, her gunstaff in her other hand. What was Izuku doing with these things? What was he programming them to do that they would have a function like this right upon activating?

Her screams echo through the halls of the clubhouse as she sprints for her life, the gallop of metal hooves close behind her. She makes it to the entryway and dives to the side, the machine skidding past on the smoother floor, unable to get as much traction and having to take a moment to right itself before it can charge again.

Mashi takes this opportunity to rush forward, a fire in her eyes and a battle cry on her tongue, reaching out with her gunstaff to hook onto the machine’s neck, using the leverage to swing herself up and over, onto its back.

For a second she just sits there, the machine seeming to appear as shocked as she is that she’s managed to get where she is, but then it flings its head and begins to buck.

Mashi lurches forward to wrap an arm around the robotic horse’s neck to hold on, screaming at the top of her lungs as she’s flung around. “HOW DO YOU TURN OFF?” she screams at one point, trying to smack at the machine with her gunstaf, her movement limited. She doesn’t want to drop the OWL, and only now does she realize she should have put it down when she’d slid to safety a second ago, but it’s too late to worry about that anymore.

She feels like she’s going to be sick as she’s thrown around, holding on only by her arm, her legs flinging around behind her with no apparent grip on the skeletal build. “FUCKING STOP ALREADY!” she screams just as loud as she had before, timing the bucking just right so she can get a good smack in from her gunstaff to the machine’s snout.

With a splutter the horse suddenlt stops, hooves clopping a few more times as it settles, the whirring from the machinery dying down slowly. The glow in the eyes fades to blue again, and then clicks off and the head slowly lowers.

Wait, what?

Had she done it? Had she actually, for once, fixed the issue on her own? With brute force no less? That was… hard to believe.

A throat clearing makes her look up from where she still lay on the machine’s back and her stomach drops. Izuku stands in the front door, his mechanical eye glowing from who-knows-what, and the comic book Mashi had leant him in his hand.

“I was going to come and ask if you had anymore after I glanced through it,” the boy says, raising the comic to wiggle it. He has one brow arched and his expression is somehow both unimpressed and humorous all at once. “Glad I showed up when I did.”

“How did…?” Mashi can’t even finish, she’s too exhausted.

Izuku lifts his flesh hand to point at his eye that is now fading back to its normal blue. “I can turn off and on a lot of my robots wirelessly from here,” he says simply and Mashi nods. She didn’t need to know the specifics; it was enough to just know Izuku had things under control where she didn’t.

“Cool…” she says breathlessly, still nodding to herself.

“Yeah…” her friend agrees slowly. He’ll definitely want an explanation, and Mashi will give it to him, but for now she slides to her left just enough to set the OWL on the ground gently, then lifts herself back up and slides to her right…

…Right off the horse and onto the ground with a loud thud.

She was never going back into that workroom by herself every again. Ever… Except she probably was… And this would probably happen again. She knew herself too well.

Oh well…

At least she had her comic books organized…

Chapter Text

Aizawa was good at keeping injuries to a minimum. He was stealthy and silent, able to take down villains within a few seconds before anything could get too bad, but sometimes they got the better of him. Sometimes they were more vicious or capable than the underground hero had previously thought, or sometimes they just got a good couple hits in by chance.

Like tonight… He was lucky. The villain hadn’t done too much damage to require a trip to the hospital, and they were still defeated and put into police custody, but Aizawa knew he looked awful. He felt awful.

His entire back felt like one giant bruise from being thrown off a roof and cuts covered his arms and legs, the worst of which being one on his left calf. His face probably was a mess of purple skin and he knew he had some swelling because his right eye’s vision was getting thinner and blurrier at the edges. He could feel his heart beat through his whole body, a painful, echoing pulse.

When he had finally managed to get home after his patrol he was met with a bit of a conundrum. In the past, when a villain got the better of him, he would collapse in his apartment, uncaring where, and pass out. He knew he needed to dress his wounds, he knew he should take painkillers and eat something and sleep somewhere more comfortable than the floor or the couch, but these thoughts rarely mattered in the moment. Sure, he would know logically he should do these things, but it always felt more like a distant voice, a forgotten memory, telling him to do so and he would end up just falling asleep anyway, body more convincing than the mind.

But nowadays things were different. Nowadays he didn’t have to only rely on himself until Hizashi or Nemuri appeared during the day to finally get him moving and working on tending to his wounds. Nowadays he wasn’t alone anymore.

Which is how he finds himself sitting in the Midoriya apartment at four in the morning, head lowered in exhaustion, Inko quietly fretting over him. He felt bad for waking her up. She may not have work tomorrow, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t want to rest, and Aizawa hated that he was taking that away from her.

“I am sorry for this, Midoriya-san,” he says, his voice raspy, when Inko returns with a washcloth. The woman doesn’t hesitate as she pulls a chair forward and begins to wipe off some of the grime from the man’s face.

“I don’t want any apologies,” she says quietly. They didn’t really need to be quiet, Izuku wasn’t there, he was sleeping over at his explosive friend’s house… The literally explosive one, not the explosively loud, redheaded one. But the atmosphere was such that speaking too loudly seemed inappropriate. “I want you to come to me when you need me.”

Aizawa’s expression doesn’t change, it hardly can with how much his face hurts, and he watches his neighbor quietly. Her touch is gentle and patient, cleaning up wounds with as little pain as possible. He hardly even flinches, and the silence makes him drowsy despite the ache.

He felt bad for waking up Inko, but he also felt grateful. He knew he could trust her, knew she would always be there to help. He didn’t know what he had done in his life to deserve the Midoriyas, but he didn’t think he could ever give them up. He had never had a family like this before. Hizashi and Nemuri were close, but Inko and Izuku were something else entirely.

“Thank you,” he says quietly as Inko begins to patch him up, wrapping up his arms and legs. He has to take off his shirt and scarf and roll up his pants legs, but none of it feels awkward. Little made Aizawa feel awkward anyway, but Inko just was able to let out a calming aura with everything she did, so long as she wasn’t worrying up a storm.

“Of course,” the woman says, pausing just long enough so she can catch Aizawa’s eye and smile at him. “It’s a mother’s job to look after her boys.”

Aizawa lets out a long sigh, head lowering. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?” he questions roughly and Inko quickly fetches him a glass of water, which feels like heaven on his throat. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he’d accidentally called Inko “mom,” and no one had forgotten it. Izuku had even begun calling him “Aizawa-nii” regularly, which he still wasn’t sure how how he felt about that.

“I truly am honored,” Inko says quietly, turning back to her work, a small smile on her face, and Aizawa goes back to watching her. “You’re a wonderful young man,” she explains, using her quirk to float over another roll of gauze for his leg. “You’re strong, devoted, brave, and you look after Izuku, too. You have… terrible self care habits,” her face twists a little and Aizawa smirks at her irritation. “I want to help you overcome them. I want to see you succeed and do well and be healthy. I want my home to be a place you feel safe.”

One of Inko’s hands falls onto Aizawa’s knee, making him look up at her again. He was beginning to fade, his body relaxing and his nerves calming, sleep scratching at his eyelids.

“I do not know what your family was like growing up,” the woman says and distant, empty memories flash in his head of coming back to his family’s apartment and not seeing it as a home, just a place to sleep. Of being alone for hours and hours on end after school. Of having all his needs met, save for parents that actually cared about him or what he was doing. “But I would like to think you’re part of our family now.”

Inko stands – she’s just about done with the wounds now – and Aizawa turns his tired eyes up at her. “You don’t have to see me as your mother, but know that I have no issue with it, and that it would make me proud to call you my son,” she smiles a bit brighter, “And Izuku looks up to you more than you realize. You make an excellent older brother.” Aizawa snorts, lowering his head and shaking out some of his hair.

“Never really wanted a little sibling,” he half jokes, his voice distant, uncertain how else he is supposed to respond, and Inko hums, helping adjust his hair some for him.

“Most kids don’t, but you get one anyway,” she whispers and suddenly there’s a pressure on the top of Aizawa’s head, an alien feeling yet somehow he still recognizes it and his eyes widen in shock. Inko presses a kiss to the crown of his head, like a mother to her child’s, then leans away and smiles down at his dumbfounded expression. “Sleep here tonight. Izuku’s bed is empty and it will be better than that couch of yours,” she says, nodding towards her son’s empty room, then pats down Aizawa’s hair one more time. “And no matter what you decide to call us… Know that we love you, Shouta,” she nods to him, meaningful and loving, then turns and heads to clean up everything she had pulled out to tend to his wounds.

He watches her silently, his eyes wide, or as wide as they can be with one of them swollen, and when she disappears into the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing, he shifts and faces forward once more. His elbows rest on his knees and his head hangs, shoulders slouched and back curled. Truly, meaningfully kind words were difficult for him to swallow sometimes. He could deal with shallow ones, or playful ones, there were logical responses to all of those, but this? This was not familiar ground for him.

Despite the uncertainty, however, he felt… good. Loved. Like part of a family he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

He smiles to himself, gathering up his shirt and capture weapon, and very carefully stands. He was exhausted and, with the help of his neighbor and a safe place to rest, he was sure he would be getting some good sleep this time around.

Before he heads towards Izuku’s empty room to pass out, he tilts his head back towards where he still hears Inko rummaging around, and speaks softly so only he can hear it. He would say it out loud to her honestly one day, just not today.

“Thank you, mom.”

Chapter Text

“That is the cheapest move! How could you?!” Izuku near cried, eyes wide as he stares at the television screen in front of him, slack jawed.

Shinsou sits beside him on the ground, smiling thinly down at the genius boy. “It’s an entirely valid strategy. It’s not my fault you couldn’t dodge it,” he says cockily. He hadn’t been coming over for very long, but Izuku had quickly learned he could get like this sometimes. Whenever he got the upper hand on someone – in training, schooling, or anything really – he could get just a tad bit smug.

“Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should,” Izuku grumbles, lifting up his Gamecube controller as his character reappeared on screen. The Gamecube was old but in great condition. Originally it had been at Mashi’s house, but after Izuku had fixed it up she had let him keep it at his own apartment. The television was old enough to not even need a special adaptor cord for the system.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Shinsou continues to smirk, also lifting up his controller as his character reappears as well. He makes his Kirby on screen immediately jump away from an incoming blast from Izuku’s Samus.

“You ate me and jumped off the ledge!” Izuku shrieks, eyes glued on the screen as he chases after the floaty, pink blob.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Izuku,” comes a deeper voice on the other side of Shinsou and the green-haired boy takes a moment to look around at the third member of their game.

“Wait until it happens to you,” he grumbles at the bored-looking prohero. Aizawa doesn’t even look like he’s having fun, but his fingers are still quickly tapping at his controller as he tries to avoid attacks and counter with his Mewtwo.

Despite the bickering, Izuku loves these occasional, calm weekends. No one really wants to do any real work and they end up just lazing around. All of Izuku and Shinsou’s homework was done, Aizawa had work much later, and they had all gotten in their workout and training for the day. Izuku could be working on some builds, maybe finish up Shinsou’s bike, but he really didn’t have the energy at the moment. Shinsou could be catching up on some training, or designing possible ideas for his hero costume for Izuku to build, but he was out of energy, too.

Somehow they had all ended up in the Midoriya apartment, resting in the living area, when Shinsou had challenged Izuku to a battle on Super Smash Bros Melee. After a few games they had also managed to drag Aizawa into it, teaching him how to play and going through a few rounds so he could experiment with characters. For a while he had gravitated towards Jigglypuff, mumbling, “I wish that were me,” when he put people to sleep, but other than that he kept dying.

“It isn’t going to happen to me,” Aizawa replies simply, throwing a Shadow Ball at Samus, who immediately rolls into a ball beneath it then shoots a rocket back. He was much better at Mewtwo, they had found, and thus far was doing pretty well.

“Famous last words,” Shinsou says airily. He looks more awake than ever as he focuses on the battle. In the second that Aizawa and Izuku begin fighting each other Shinsou’s Kirby floats over, gobbles up Mewtwo, and begins to walk towards the edge.

“Wait…” Aizawa says slowly, followed by the frantic tapping of controller buttons. Izuku and Shinsou both grin at the sound. Kirby is too close to the edge for Mewtwo to breakout in time. “Izuku, shoot him,” Aizawa near orders, eyes still glued to the screen, but looking a bit more frustrated, especially when Samus just stands there doing nothing.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Aizawa-nii,” Izuku sing-songs, Shinsou cackling beside him as finally Kirby takes a nosedive off the edge, dragging Mewtwo with him.

Aizawa slowly lowers his controller, watching as the two characters “explode” off screen, waiting for them to reappear. He looked devoid of feeling now, just staring ahead, before saying lowly, “That was a cheap move.”

“I told you!” Izuku yells, but he’s smiling, and soon both he and Shinsou are doubled over with laughter while Aizawa looks disgruntled.

“This is a terrible game,” the adult rumbles.

Shinsou is the first to recover, his laughter short and quieter, and turns his smug smile on Aizawa. “You only say that because you lost,” he says, but then the prohero is turning to look at Shinsou with a hard, blank stare. The purple-haired boy’s shoulders curl a little, eyes widening, his cockiness quickly diminishing when he remembers who he’s talking to.

Aizawa stares Shinsou down for a moment before slowly looking towards the shorter boy across from him. “Izuku…” he begins and the green-haired boy perks up.

“Do you want to team up and destroy Shinsou-kun?” Izuku asks much too eagerly, knowing exactly where the older man might have been going.

Rather than say anything Aizawa gives a low hum as an affirmative, turning back to look at the screen as Izuku laughs excitedly. Shinsou looks back and forth at them, eyes widening.

“Wait…” he says slowly, then startles and quickly raises his controller as Mewtwo and Samus on screen both jump into action. Shinsou’s eyes stay wide as he frantically tries to make his Kirby run away, trying to get free from the onslaught of attacks.

It doesn’t take long at all for Kirby to be sent flying after a series of attacks from the other two characters and Shinsou is deflating in disbelief. On either side of him Izuku is grinning at him and Aizawa is smirking, looking similar to Shinsou’s own.

“That was a cheap move,” Shinsou mumbles grumpily, pouting only further when Aizawa snorts and Izuku begins to giggle.