Chapter Text
They were getting a new kid today.
It was rotten luck, in Shouta’s opinion, for a kid to be moved to the group home on the first day of school. Didn’t bode well for the rest of the year, he thought. After all, the only kind of kids that were in the group home were kids like himself- either too old for people to want to adopt, or too much of a troublemaker to be in a regular foster home. Distantly, he wondered which category the new kid would fall into. Maybe both?
Dragging himself out of his thoughts, Shouta lazily glanced around the room. It was the first day of class in 2-A. The hero course. He’d made it through the Sports Festival the year before, dragging himself to first place with bloody knuckles and gritted teeth, and his mentor had continued to tutor him until he was ready to integrate into the hero course. Of course, a lot of it was all red tape and bullshit, what with the school board being unhappy about a kid with a “villainous Quirk” taking the place of a “heroically Quirked” student. Nedzu hadn’t seemed too upset to be shifting the Minoru kid to Gen Ed and Shouta into 2-A, even though the board had been highly against it. Nedzu liked churning the waves like that.
Shouta wasn’t a fan of drama, and this came to the forefront of his mind as he inspected the rest of his new classmates with a lazy eye. A few in particular caught his attention. There was a boy at the front of the class who was laughing with a dark-haired girl with glasses. The boy had exhaust pipes coming out of his elbows, but the girl didn’t seem to have any apparent Quirk. Then there was the white-haired boy with fangs who was seemingly arguing- and losing - with a girl who had octopus tentacles for hair.
A loud, boisterous laugh racked the room, and Shouta bit back a groan as his eyes trailed over to the blonde who had made the noise. And, oh, it was that guy. With braces and glasses, blonde hair all spiked up into a ghastly mountain of yellow, the boy was leaning against another kid- blue, fluffy hair, goggles around his neck- as he cackled.
Yeah. Shouta wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole.
So of course, it so happened that he sat right next to the blonde. Right between the blonde and the exhaust-pipes kid. Exhaust-pipe-boy introduced himself as Iida Tensei. Shouta shook his hand cordially if not reluctantly before turning back to the front of the room.
The blonde next to him cleared his throat.
“Are you gonna introduce yourself to me, too?” he asked. His tone didn’t sound rude, more inquisitive than anything else, but the words still rubbed at Shouta like sandpaper.
With a heavy sigh- reminding himself that Nedzu was a downright bastard when he was feeling vindictive, especially towards his personal students - Shouta turned to the other boy.
“Aizawa Shouta,” he introduced himself, not lifting a hand towards the blonde.
“Nice, dude!” the blonde exclaimed. “My name’s Yamada Hizashi! It’s great to meet the guy who kicked my ass in last year’s Sports Festival!” By the tone of Yamada’s voice, and the bubbling laughter that accompanied it, there were no hard feelings about last year. Which was good, because as much as Shouta wasn’t looking to make friends, he also wasn’t looking to make enemies. “I think we’re gonna be good friends, Shouta-kun!”
Shouta’s brow twitched. “Aren’t you being a little informal?”
Looking confused, the blonde said, “I used honorifics, right?”
Iida sighed heavily to Shouta’s left, leaning forward to speak to the other boy. “You’ll have to excuse my friend, Aizawa. He’s American.”
“Hey! I was born in Japan!” Yamada protested. “It’s just my Mom’s American, so I grew up learning English. Honorifics and stuff are a little weird for me to get down with. You feel me?”
No, Shouta decidedly didn’t “feel” Yamada, but- again- not looking to make enemies.
That didn’t mean he had to be friendly, though.
“You should learn to honor the language of the country you live in,” Shouta countered.
Yamada had the gall to laugh at that, a full-belly laugh that had him shaking. “So proper and formal, Sho- Aizawa! But okay, I’ll bite. I’m taking Japanese classes while the rest of you are in English, anyways. Tested out.”
“Good for you,” Shouta replied as dryly as he could muster.
“Oh yeah,” Yamada grinned ear-to-ear. “We’re gonna be the best of friends!”
Fighting back the heaviest sigh yet, Shouta snapped back, “I’m not here to make friends.”
But Yamada didn’t seem deterred. If anything, the fire in his eyes seemed to grow as he grinned at Shouta. “Challenge accepted!”
This time, Shouta didn’t bother to hide his sigh. Yeah, this was going to be an interesting year to say the least.
…
A vicious banging on the opposite side of his door had Shouta snapping to attention, huffing out a sigh as he removed his headphones and turned away from the supplementary Hero Ethics video Nedzu had sent him. Ethics was an interesting class, probably Shouta’s favorite, and Nedzu took a keen interest in igniting his personal student’s curiosity with the subject. Shouta often received emails from his sensei with articles and pre-recorded seminars fully devoted to Hero Ethics and Theory.
There was more banging on his door, and Shouta called out, “Coming!” before stalking over to the door and throwing it open. “ What ?” he snapped down at Yuichi, a boy only a year younger than him but several inches shorter, which wasn’t saying much considering Shouta’s own diminutive height. The school nurse had reassured him he’d get a growth spurt soon, but Shouta didn’t know if he trusted Recovery Girl as far as he could throw her. Which was, admittedly, probably not very far. Shouta valued speed and agility more than raw strength, after all.
Yuichi stuck out his tongue at Shouta, knowing fully well that the older would never lay a hand on him, before jeering, “The new kid’s here. Masami-san says to come downstairs and greet him.”
So it was a boy joining their midst. Shouldn’t have been surprising to Shouta, considering the only girl at the home was seventeen-year-old Hitomi who was about to age out of the system anyways. She and Shouta, being the oldest of the kids, were the only ones who had their own rooms. The other five brats were spread out between two different rooms and three different bunk-beds. They were rowdy enough in the evening to shake the walls of Shouta’s own bedroom, but after lights’ out, the teen was usually able to get his homework and extracurricular work done. The brats ranged in age from ten to fifteen, Jun being the youngest while Yuichi and Ryo were the oldest, only a year younger than Shouta.
Shouta wondered how old this new kid would be. They had to be at least Jun’s age, although it was likely that they were older. Jun had been a special case, a troublemaker with a “villainous Quirk” that made no one want to foster him. Shouta had heard that the ten-year-old had been taken into custody once and had eight placements before coming to the group home. So, no, probably not as young as Jun. Maybe around Naoki’s or Kenji’s age, or maybe even as old as Yuichi and Ryo. Shouta would be shocked if the boy was his own age. Ugh, if the kid was his age, he might have to share his room. Shouta may just have to throw a fit at that tragedy, consequences be damned.
But, as he entered the lower foyer of the two-story house, Shouta realized he wouldn’t have to worry about that any time soon.
Because there was a fucking toddler standing in front of him.
What the fu…? His mind trailed off, unable to even finish the curse in his stupor. Because the kid in front of him could have hardly been four years old. Hell, his Quirk probably hadn’t even come in yet, he was so young. And besides being young, the boy was small . Absolutely miniscule. He could have hardly come up to Shouta’s waist, which- once again- wasn’t saying much. With a head of curly, dark hair that, oddly enough, seemed to glint green in the light, the boy had freckled, plump cheeks that contrasted deeply against his skinny frame. His red hoodie and shoes were dirty and frayed, and there was a smudge of dirt on his button nose. When the boy looked up from between his bangs at Shouta, seemingly inspecting the newcomer, the teen was barely able to get a glimpse at bright, emerald eyes from beneath the curls before the child was looking back down at the floor.
Masami- a severe-looking woman with a head full of silver hair and frown lines creasing her forehead- cleared her throat to call everyone to attention. Even the brats knew to be quiet when Masami called for it, and their roughhousing in the living room came to a quick halt as they scurried into the foyer. From her position lounging on the stairwell behind Shouta, Hitomi scoffed. Shouta suspected she’d have a cigarette dangling from her fingers if she could get away with it.
Once everyone had stilled, Masami called out, “Meet your new sibling, children. This is Midoriya Izuku. Say hello.”
Everyone called out their greetings- Shouta included, because he didn’t want a tongue-lashing later- and stared at the small child.
When the kid- Midoriya- failed to call out his own hello, Masami smacked the back of his head. Shouta felt his gut clench at the action, and his hands twitched at his sides as he leveled a glare at Masami. The woman rolled her eyes, rearing back to smack Midoriya’s head once more, but the little boy finally chirped out, “H-H-Hello,” in a meek voice.
“Hmm…” Masami frowned pointedly at the child’s stutter, her hands twitching like she wanted to reach forward and smack Midoriya once more. “We’ll work on that.” And then, turning back to the rest of the children, she called out, “Dinner will be in an hour. Make Midoriya welcome until then.”
And then, she said the words that would damn the poor boy. The words that had the blood in Shouta’s veins running cold, that made him glance over at Yuichi’s and Ryo’s wicked grins.
“Oh, and do be gentle with him, boys. Midoriya is Quirkless.”
…
Having a villainous Quirk was near damning in their world. Kids with villainous Quirks were often shunned, bullied, abused, abandoned… or worse. Shouta himself had experienced all of the above before the age of ten. He’d been taken into the foster system after a particularly harsh beating from his father around age seven that ended with him dragging himself on a broken ankle to school the next day. His teacher had been forced to call the police, and that had been that.
Foster care wasn’t the worst. But Shouta still hated it. Even at the homes that were good, everything felt… faked. Their smiles were plastered on, like they felt they had to be happy all the time or he was going to go postal on them. And the homes that were bad… were bad . Shouta had been locked in a broken, unused refrigerator at one point in time. He’d been in there for nearly an entire day before he got his crummy cellphone to work and called the police.
So, yeah, Shouta had seen the worst the world had to offer. All because of his villainous Quirk.
But those who didn’t have Quirks?
The Quirkless ?
Hell, life was ten times harder for them.
Shouta could prove it by just watching Midoriya. When Masami had left them all to go start fixing dinner, the five younger boys had all swarmed the poor child, standing around him in a vicious ring of mockery and degradation.
“You don’t have a Quirk, huh? What good use are you, then?”
“How are you so scrawny? You’re like a fucking toothpick!”
“What’d you do to make them send you here, huh? You kill somebody?”
“Hah! Like he could do any harm. Probably got someone sick. Made them lose their Quirk."
"Just like a fuckin’ Geneless to do-”
Shouta didn’t know what did it. Maybe it was his training in heroics, or maybe it was the use of the slur. But one moment, he was standing off next to Hitomi on the stairwell, and the next, he was standing in between Midoriya and the five other boys, arms crossed over his chest and jaw clenched tightly.
“Knock it off, assholes,” Shouta snapped lowly, puffing out his chest and using what little height he had on the five other boys to try and intimidate them away. “He’s a kid . Christ, what are you all, villains ?”
And, as their society had created it, it was the unspoken internal wish of every Quirked child to be a hero. Because of this, deeming their actions villainous was enough to get most of them to scatter. Most of them. It was Yuichi who stood back, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up in a poor imitation of Shouta’s demanding stance. “Oh, you’d know everything about being villainous , wouldn’t you, Shouta?”
“We’re both here , Yuichi,” Shouta countered. “And only one of us goes to a Hero School. So, from where I’m standing, it looks like the one pushing around a fucking four-year-old is the real villain.”
Yuichi’s glare turned to a pout, and he kicked at the ground. “I wasn’t pushing him. I’m not a fucking villain , Christ. Shut the fuck up, Shouta. Go back to your stupid Hero School homework.” And with that, Yuichi turned tail and ran.
Relaxing his stance now that only Hitomi was present, Shouta huffed under his breath, “ Brat .”
But now, Shouta wasn’t so sure of his actions. Because now he was stuck with said four-year-old, one that had probably seen just as much of their horrifying world that Shouta had. Why was there a fucking toddler here anyways? Who approved that placement? This was a home for troublemakers and older kids. The meek, terrified child standing behind Shouta didn’t seem like much of either.
Biting back a sigh, Shouta resigned himself to turning around and taking a knee in front of the child. This was what he was terrible at- comforting victims. And Midoriya was certainly a victim, even if it was only of circumstance (although Shouta doubted those words even as he thought them). Because, somehow and someway, Midoriya was here, where only kids like Shouta belonged. Those that others had given up on. But what kind of downright evil soul had given up on a fucking baby ?
“Hey, kid,” Shouta spoke weakly. Behind him, Hitomi snorted. Behind his back, Shouta shot her the bird. “My name’s Aizawa Shouta. Sorry about the others… they’re brats.”
The child was quiet in front of him, near silent save for his sniffling.
Shit. This kid isn’t going to make it a day on his own. They’ll rip him to shreds .
“Chin up, kid,” Shouta said lightly, making an upward motion with his own chin. “You can’t let them get to you. They’re just assholes, anyways.”
Midoriya still didn’t respond.
“ Well, ” Hitomi drawled, slinking off the banister, “as invigorating as this conversation is, I’ve got some blunts to smoke and homework to not do. Peace out, little guy,” she finished, flashing a victory sign at Midoriya. If the boy had looked up from the floor, he may have been able to see it. As it were, the only thing Midoriya seemed to be visualizing were his own ratty red sneakers.
Fighting back a sigh, Shouta mentally kicked himself in the pants. Come on, Aizawa. You can do this. He’s a fuckin child . You can comfort a little kid. You can … So long as he doesn’t start crying. Christ, he better not start crying-
“F-Five.”
Shouta nearly startled at the voice that came from the child in front of him. For all that Midoriya’s voice was as shaky as his limbs were, it was nothing close to meek. No, there was a fire beneath the voice, one that Shouta could already tell was able to blaze into an inferno.
The kid just needed a push.
“Five?” Shouta replied, and Midoriya finally looked up at him.
Nodding, the little boy said, “Y-You said I was f-four. I’m f-five.”
Feeling a bit confused, Shouta nodded back slowly. “Alright, then. Five.” Taking a moment to look the child up and down, Shouta sighed when he saw nothing different. Maybe he had been hoping to notice some kind of muscle underneath the too-large hoodie. Maybe he had been hoping Midoriya would spontaneously develop some kind of flashy Quirk. But nothing changed. There was just scrawny, tiny, victim-of-circumstance Midoriya.
“Alright, Midoriya,” Shouta began, only for the child to wince.
“Izuku, p-please,” the little boy whispered out, sounding sadder than when he had corrected Shouta on his age.
It made sense. A lot of the kids here didn’t like their family names, Shouta included. It would make sense that Midoriya- Izuku - wanted to go by his given name.
“Izuku, then,” Shouta amended. “You stay close by me when you can, okay, kid? I’ll protect you.”
That was the first time that Shouta saw it. The light that burned behind the glass of Izuku’s traumatized eyes. It sparked, a tiny flame licking at the foggy barrier that threatened to extinguish it.
Shouta decided, in that moment, that he would do anything to make that flame grow.