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When Shouta had first agreed to adopt a kid under a contract, he might not have thought through all of the consequences of such an action.
Killing people, as a hired killer? That was easy. Stealing data? A bit unusual, but still within his range.
Taking care of children? He was rapidly realizing he did not have the skillset for that.
It began, as things often do, in the morning of their first full day together. The previous day was fine -- they only spent a couple hours in each other’s company -- but overnight, it seemed the situation had caught up to the kid.
The situation he perceived to be in at least, that is, that his mother abandoned him with some strange man he’d never seen before.
That was another thing Shouta had not considered before taking on this job. The kid had no reason to trust him, and it was already peculiar that he had managed to get Izuku to leave with him.
Although, the kid’s abysmaly low self-esteem -- Shouta suspected the societal effect his quirklessness has had on his life was to blame for that -- definitely helped.
Shouta would, of course, make sure that in the future no one looked down on the boy because of his quirk status alone. For now, however, it worked for him, so he couldn’t really complain.
The issue, however, was this: It was raining. It was raining, and the boy was not amenable to changing the outfit he had picked for himself.
In Shouta’s opinion, shorts were hardly the right kind of trousers to wear when there were puddles everywhere. When he had tried to impart that on Izuku, however, the boy’s arguments… Did not inspire much confidence in Midoriya Inko’s parenting skills.
“Mom never said anything about my wearing shorts!” The kid argued hotly.
Shouta raised an eyebrow. “Even in the rain?”
“Yes!”
Hm. Well, let’s try the good old confusion tactic.
“Okay. How about… In the snow?”
The kid squinted his eyes suspiciously. “Yeeees?”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Izuku blinked, his shoulders relaxing from the defensive position he had kept them in before.
“I… Cold.”
“And in the rain? How did it feel to wear shorts when a car would drive past?”
Izuku folded his arms across his chest. “Wet. I get the point!”
“Do you?” Shouta smirked. “Good. What are you going to do about it, then?”
The kid mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“I forgot to pack any long trousers,” Izuku repeated, his face growing red as he tried to avoid looking Shouta in the eyes.
Ah. Shouta had a feeling he was forgetting something all day yesterday, and it seemed like the thing he was forgetting was “check what the 7 years old child packed for his extended holidays”.
Still.
“That’s why we’re going to the shops today,” Shouta said, letting the issue go. There was nothing they could do to fix it, right now. “We’ll pick something on the go. Come on, before they stop serving breakfast. You taking your plushie with you?”
The kid glanced up at him, just for a second, his face full of bewilderment.
“I… I can take my plushie?”
“I don’t see why not,” Shouta shrugged, moving to root through the one bag he took with him to check in. “We should get you a bag, too. You keep carrying that notebook of yours everywhere, there’s no point in keeping your hands occupied all the time.”
He couldn’t see the kid when he was rooting through what little earthly possessions he’s had on him right then, but when he turned around, Izuku was still standing still, blinking rapidly.
“Here,” Shouta said, passing over a messenger bag. He’s had to empty it from the few spare weapons he kept in there, and hopefully this one didn’t have anything too dangerous hidden in the seams, but the size seemed to be about right for the kid.
Izuku’s eyes glided down to the bag, the confusion clear. “...For me?”
“For your notebook, and the plushie, and whatever else you might fancy bringing with you,” Shouta confirmed.
“Oh,” Fuck, were those tears? “You… You don’t think my notebook is creepy?”
….What the fuck.
“No?” Shouta said, wincing slightly when it came out more like a question than an answer. “Why would I think that?”
Izuku, wordlessly, walked over to the nightstand where he left his notebook. Grabbing it, he made his way over to Shouta, handing it in with his eyes stuck firmly to the floor.
Bewildered, Shouta accepted the notebook, flicking it open.
It seemed to be chock full of…. Quirk analysis?
Advanced quirk analysis.
“What the fuck,” he accidentally said out loud. Hell, you weren’t supposed to be cursing around children, right? “You wrote this?”
“...Yes,” Izuku said, his eyes still glued to his feet, as if this was something to be ashamed of.
“Kid, when I receive data packets? I wish this was the quirk section,” Shouta said absently, still flipping through the pages. “General use, categorization, strengths, weaknesses, potential development ideas? How long have you been practicing this?”
“I uh,” Izuku rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but finally raised his head. “I started my first notebook when I could write well enough. I was… Five, maybe?”
Two years, then. Two years of self-polishing the kind of quirk analysis Shouta rarely saw in adult analysts.
“We’re gonna have to discuss this later, I wanna know more,” Shouta said, glancing at his watch and snapping the notebook closed before passing it over to the boy. “If you’ve got more of these, I wanna see them, too. But for now, breakfast, come on.”
He walked towards the front doors, vaguely aware of the kid scrambling to follow him.
When Shouta saw the kid next, turning to lock the doors closed, he had the messenger bag slung over his shoulder, his plushie just barely visible through the hastily closed top.
The walk down to the breakfast area passed in silence.
It was a buffet, as hotel breakfast usually were. Shouta let the kid pick out his own food -- he suspected he would pick something relatively healthy, considering his track record -- and guided him towards the table with the best strategic positioning.
The only way he would ever sit with his back to the entrance would be if his biggest enemy sat opposite to it.
The kid seemed to have something weighing on his mind, considering how he pushed his food around. An egg and toast with tomato sliced, fruit yogurt for dessert -- shut up, breakfast definitely deserved to include a dessert -- proved Shouta right.
It was leagues better than his own choice, a selection of jelly pouches. The kid did give them a weird look when they first sat down, but had ignored Shouta’s entire existence ever since.
“Something on your mind?” Shouta asked casually, slurping on his jello.
“It’s… Nothing,” Izuku said reluctantly.
“So there is something,” Shouta extrapolated. “Out with it.”
Izuku sighed. “It’s just… I think you got some wrong ideas, earlier.”
Shouta furrowed his brows, lowering his jello pouch. “What do you mean?”
Setting his fork down resolutely, Izuku raised his head to stare Shouta straight in the eye.
“I’m not… Who you think I am.”
Quirking an eyebrow, Shouta stared him down. “You’re not absolutely brilliant at analysing quirks?”
“I’m not some kinda genius!” Izuku exploded, yet somehow still mindfull of his volume and how it would affect the people at the tables surrounding theirs. Such a considerate young boy. “I’m not- It’s creepy, what I do, I’m just, just jealous of all those quirks-”
“The person in red shirt behind me,” Shouta said, enjoying how confused Izuku seemed at that interruption. “Give me a quick quirk rundown.”
Izuku seemed to take them in for a few seconds before sighing.
“Water quirk,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “They can breathe under water, and they use it often. They swim, professionally, and are here for a competition. The only reason they agreed to come to Musutafu is likely the humidity levels, especially this time of year. They need to keep their gills wet and have a way to protect them, but don’t like to do it. They can breathe air, but they’re unused to it. They have a slight webbing between their fingers, and it’s likely between their toes, too, considering the special shoes they have to wear. They might have had a surgically removed tail- no, it had to be an accident. They wouldn’t have given up an advantage like that.”
The words puttered off, though the kid seemed to be actively holding in his tongue.
“Weaknesses?” Shouta prompted.
“Hot air,” Izuku shrugged. “Obviously. Very delicate neck, probably lower flexibility in fingers. Could work on it, but it doesn’t matter much to them.”
Silence fell over the table. Shouta just kept staring at the kid as he got closer and closer to putting his nose in the breakfast.
“Calling it creepy is making you a major disservice,” He said, eventually. “I’d call it extraordinary. You have a gift, Izuku. It might not be a quirk, but in my eyes? It’s better than one.”
Izuku’s eyes started to fill with tears, again. The kid seemed to be always ready to cry at the drop of a hat.
…Might come in handy at some point, if Aizawa ever needed to involve the kid in one of his missions. No one would be suspicious of him if there was a crying child about. Those tended to gather quite a lot of attention. Mostly negative one, but attention was attention, and Shouta didn’t care as long as it was off of him.
“That’s- That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” Izuku chocked out, trying and almost succeeding at keeping his tears at bay.
“They it seems you’ve been surrounded by idiots your entire life,” Shouta shrugged, not entirely surprised. To him, pretty much everyone had been an idiot.
To have a seven-year-old be smarter than ninety nine percent of people he’s ever met was pretty embarrassing to the general populace of Japan.
Shouta couldn’t let that potential go to waste. Proper education would be the key, here. He mentally added “finding a good school” to his list of priorities for today.
“Keep going, kid,” he motioned at the mostly untouched plate. “You’re gonna need the energy later.”
Izuku tucked into his food without any complaint.
