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“Daddy, I found the milk!”
The words were accompanied by a tug on his sleeve, and Hizashi startled so badly he dropped the tub of ice cream he was holding.
He had been standing in the dairy aisle, trying to decide between chocolate chip and strawberry shortcake. Shouta had been on an out-of-town mission for a week and Hizashi’s mood had dropped steadily day by day, until by now he was ready to resort to sugary foods for comfort.
He managed to awkwardly catch the tub between his hip and the freezer door before it hit the ground, and let out a sigh of relief. Then he remembered his priorities, and glanced over to the right, where a young boy with bright green eyes and hair was nervously shuffling his feet, holding out a carton of milk with the hand not attached to Hizashi’s sleeve. He was tiny. Only four years old, perhaps? Five?
Hizashi looked in confusion from the hand on his sleeve to the milk and back to the boy’s face. “Hey kid, I think you’ve got the wrong—”
“No, Daddy, we always have this milk!” the boy said quickly, rushing the words before Hizashi could finish. This time, however, his eyes darted nervously over his shoulder, and Hizashi paused. That wasn’t just nervousness in the boy’s eyes—it was fear.
Following his gaze, Hizashi noticed a man hovering near the end of the aisle. At first glance, the man didn’t look suspicious—he was well-dressed in a business suit, with neatly styled black hair and a suitcase in one hand, for all the world looking like he was just doing some shopping on his way home from work. However, it was the look in his eyes that set off alarm bells in Hizashi’s brain. The man was staring at the boy with an intensity that had Hizashi instinctively gripping the child’s sleeve in turn and tugging him a little closer.
Some of the tension seemed to leave the boy’s shoulders at his action, and Hizashi closed the freezer door, tossing the ice cream into his cart without a further thought beyond getting the boy out of that man’s sight.
“Yes, I see now,” he said softly, accepting the milk the boy was still holding out. “You did good, kiddo.”
He could see the child’s face crumpling in relief, and felt a surge of protectiveness, followed by anger at whoever the creep was. Fuck, no child should ever have to look this scared. He gently placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, steering him out of the other end of the aisle, away from the man and towards the checkout.
The boy’s shoulders were trembling, and Hizashi tightened his grip slightly, pressing down in a way that he knew Shouta always found grounding. He quickly went through checkout, subtly keeping track of his surroundings to make sure the man was not following them. He then led the boy out of the store and, after a slight hesitation, towards his car in the parking lot.
He was aware that despite their interaction, he was still a stranger to the child, and he didn’t want to frighten him further by taking him somewhere where they would be alone. However, he couldn’t just leave the boy outside of the store either. So instead, he led the boy to his car, giving his shoulder one more gentle squeeze before letting go and taking a step back, making sure the boy had space if he needed it.
“Are you okay?” Hizashi asked, lowering to one knee and scanning the child to see if he had missed any signs of physical hurt. “Did he—”
The boy seemed to decide that space was not what he needed, and instead launched himself at Hizashi, who just barely managed to drop the grocery bag in time to catch him in his arms.
Messy sobs were muffled against his shirt, and Hizashi’s heart broke even as he held the boy tight and ran his fingers soothingly through tangled green curls. “Ssh, kiddo. It’s okay. You’re safe now, I swear.” He continued muttering reassuring words into the boy’s hair, gently adjusting their position so the boy could curl up into his lap and he could rock them back and forth. “Let it out, buddy, it’s okay.”
Eventually, the sobs tapered off, turning into wet sniffles, and then the boy pulled back a little, rubbing a hand over his eyes. A flush had spread across his cheeks and he stared down at the concrete, looking anywhere but at Hizashi. “I-I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I got your shirt wet.”
Hizashi gently squeezed the boy’s arm. “Oh, don’t worry, little listener. I’m sure that was all really scary, and you have nothing to be sorry for.”
The boy’s eyes suddenly shot up to his face and his eyes went wide. “P-Present Mic?” he squeaked. It would have been adorable, if he hadn’t also suddenly made such a flailing attempt to get off Hizashi’s lap that he tumbled backwards onto the concrete.
“Shi— shoot,” Hizashi yelped, darting forward to check on him. Thankfully, the boy seemed fine, if even more embarrassed than before, judging by his now flaming face.
“You’re Present Mic!” he repeated. “I have wanted to meet you for so long and I was going to make a drawing and then give it to you and I was still working on a cool thing to say that would make you notice me and now you’re here and I cried on you—”
Personally, Hizashi thought the boy couldn’t possibly have come up with anything more noticeable than “Daddy, I found the milk”, but that was beside the point.
“Whoa there, little listener,” he laughed. “It’s okay! It’s so cool to meet such a young and smart fan! It’s not often that people recognise me out of my hero costume.” He shot the boy his signature finger guns, hoping to calm him down slightly. “What’s your name, kiddo?”
The boy was still blushing, but seemed less on the verge of an anxiety attack. “Izuku,” he mumbled. “Izuku Midoriya.”
“Aw yeah, Izuku!” He grinned at the boy. “I dub you my favourite little listener, alright?”
The boy—Izuku—squeaked again, instantly turning bright red, and Hizashi inwardly cooed. This kid was adorable.
Further away in the parking lot, a car door slammed and a group of teens laughed, and Hizashi remembered why they were here, on the concrete next to his car at nine pm.
“Hey, Izuku?” he began, voice slightly more serious. “Can you tell me what happened tonight, inside the store? Did you know that man?”
Izuku’s face fell. “No. I was just... I was just looking at the chocolates, and he came up to me and started asking me questions, and I didn’t really want to talk to him but he kept following me every time I went somewhere else, and then I wanted to leave but he put his hand on my back, and I got scared and then I saw you, and I just grabbed the milk and—”
Hizashi felt his jaws clench and heard a ringing in his ears. The man had dared touch the child?
Izuku, misinterpreting the expression on Hizashi’s face, started wringing his hands. “I’m so sorry for bothering you, Mr Present Mic, you are probably really busy and it was really stupid and I should not have—”
“Whoa, no, little dude, you did good!” Hizashi quickly assured him, pushing down his rage for a later time. “You were not a bother, and I am so glad you came to me.”
“You—you are?” Izuku’s eyes were wide and shiny with unshed tears.
“Yes,” Hizashi said emphatically. He didn’t think he’d ever meant anything more in his life. The thought of that man getting his hands on this kid… He shook himself again. Later. “I’m so proud of you, kiddo. It was really clever of you, that little plan with the milk. I’m not sure I could have come up with that so quickly. A very heroic ruse!”
Izuku opened and closed his mouth a few times, seemingly short-circuiting at the compliment.
After a few moments, Hizashi hid a smile and decided to save him from further brain damage. “What do you say we get off this cold concrete, huh? I can drive you home?”
Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be as reassuring a question as Hizashi had been aiming for. The boy instantly shut down, awed expression replaced by a blank mask. It was honestly scary, how quick the shift had been. “No, that’s okay,” Izuku said, tone empty of all emotion. “I can walk. It’s not far.”
“I—” Hizashi hesitated. Fuck. He had to ask. “Izuku, are you safe at home?”
The boy blinked, face still blank. “Yes. It’s fine.”
Hizashi didn’t need Tsukauchi’s Quirk to know without a sliver of doubt that the boy was lying. He paused for a second. He couldn’t push too hard if he didn’t want to scare the child off. So he made sure his next question was accompanied by a wide smile. “Okay! Do you live with your parents, then, little listener?”
Something painful flashed across the boy’s face before his expression shuttered again. “No. I stay at the Blossom Orphanage.”
Hizashi internally winced. He was intimately familiar with the harsh world of orphanages and foster care, just as his husband was. “I’m sorry to hear that, little listener. I would still feel better if I could drive you over there, though.” Seeing that Izuku was about to protest, he added, “I know it’s silly, but tonight felt like a bit of an undercover mission, right? I really feel like we’ve bonded, you and me! And normally after missions we have a little debrief with all the heroes who collaborated. So I would feel loads better if I could drive you home—it’d be like our own little post-mission debrief, ya dig?”
After a second, the boy nodded, and Hizashi breathed out in relief. He didn’t know why he felt so anxious to stay close to the kid. The orphanage should be a safe enough place for him to stay—perhaps not a warm and loving home, but certainly not a dangerous one either. Yet something in Hizashi’s brain screamed at the thought of letting the child head back on his own, and he had long since learned to trust that instinct.
“Awesome!” He grinned, getting up from the ground and grimacing theatrically at the way his knees popped. It got a quiet chuckle out of Izuku, which was exactly what Hizashi had been going for. He held out a hand to the kid, posing dramatically. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s debrief, yeah!”
Izuku accepted his hand and gave a small grin in return. “Y-yeah!” he echoed, and Hizashi’s heart melted. This kid.
He tossed the bag of groceries into the backseat and helped buckle Izuku in the passenger’s seat before getting in himself. He put on some calm, relaxing music—which he did listen to as well, Shouta, shut up—that would hopefully put the kid more at ease, and started the car. He knew where the orphanage was, and while Izuku had been right when he said it wasn’t too far, it would still have been a thirty-minute walk. What had the kid even been doing all the way over here, on his own?
“Hey, kiddo, can I ask you some questions?” he asked carefully. “Part of the debrief, ya dig? I would love to get to know my favourite listener and mission partner a little better!”
Izuku looked over at him, before grinning shyly. “O-okay.”
Over the next ten minutes, Hizashi learned that Izuku was six – apparently just small for his age –, that he had been in the orphanage for about a year, that he still missed the stray cat that he used to feed near his old apartment, and that he liked heroes, and knew a lot about them. A lot. Hizashi had been listening to him talk in stupefied awe, nearly screeching when the kid, after getting over his initial shyness, had started rambling about “a really cool hero called Eraserhead” with nothing but adoration in his voice, and oh Hizashi could not wait to introduce this kid to Shouta. And record the whole thing.
Before too long, they arrived at the orphanage, and Hizashi hated, hated the way the kid’s excited ramble came to a stop immediately upon noticing where they were. His face had shut down again, all his previous enthusiasm gone, and everything inside Hizashi screamed at him to just start the car again and take him away from here, take him home, and keep him forever.
But that would be ridiculous. And also kind of illegal. So instead he sighed, unbuckled the kid, and then followed Izuku out of the car. He might not be able to take him home, but there was no way he was leaving without making sure the kid was safe.
He let Izuku set the pace, not oblivious to the way the kid hunched in on himself as he headed for the front door. He pushed it open and stepped inside, Hizashi a few paces behind him. If Hizashi had expected someone to be there to welcome him, to at least be relieved a lost child was now accounted for, he was sorely disappointed. There wasn’t even anyone there to yell at the kid for being out so late, which, while not an ideal reaction, would at least have been an understandable one. Instead, there was… nothing.
What made it worse was that the hall was not empty. There was a woman at the front desk, who took one look at Izuku before turning back to her computer, as if she hadn’t seen him at all.
The worst thing of all, however, was that Izuku didn’t seem to find this strange. He didn’t seem to expect someone to welcome him back, or to be worried for him, or to show any sign that he even existed. Hizashi felt his heart crack. No child should ever be this accustomed to being ignored, to being so completely dismissed.
Stepping fully into the hall, he strode towards the desk, startling the woman as she realised there was someone with the kid. “Hey,” he said, through clenched teeth. There was a smile on his face, but he was sure it looked more feral than friendly. “I came to return little Izuku.”
“Oh. Thank you.” The woman shot a disinterested glance at Izuku before turning back to him. “That’s kind of you.” She sounded bored.
Hizashi felt his anger rise a notch. “Did you even know where he was?”
“Out for a walk, I’m sure. He does that.”
“He’s six years old!” Hizashi hissed.
“He knows the way back. He’s fine.”
“He’s—” For a moment, Hizashi was so overcome with anger at the fact that this woman just did not care, that he could not form words. Then he gritted out, incredulous, “Do you treat all the children here this way?”
She looked up, eyes narrowing. “Sir, we take good care of our charges.”
“Well, clearly not, considering I found Izuku in a convenience store two miles away at nine pm!” He was aware that his voice had risen in anger, and could see Izuku curl in on himself even further from the corner of his eye. A part of him winced, but he couldn’t quite restrain the rage he knew must be visible in his eyes. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just shut down this whole place right now.”
The receptionist looked offended. “Sir, our charges are all fine. The boy—”
“Izuku,” Hizashi hissed.
She rolled her eyes. “Izuku,” she repeated, clearly just humouring him, “is Quirkless. We have a deal. He stays out of our way, he gets a roof over his head. We clothe him, we feed him. It’s honestly quite generous, wouldn’t you say? Better than most Quirkless kids could hope for.” She smiled at Hizashi, as if she genuinely believed this would change his mind. Out of the corner of his eye, Hizashi saw Izuku’s slight flinch, even as the woman continued speaking. “Nobody would want to adopt him anyway, so we just let him take care of himself.” She gestured towards the stairs, still smiling. “I promise our charges are all in their beds and well taken care of. There is no need to worry about them.”
Hizashi couldn’t breathe. The way the woman spoke. This woman—this place, this godforsaken hellhole had told this kid that… what, that he would just have to fend for himself? That he wasn’t worth their time, or their care, or even a second of their attention? That he was worthless, just because he didn’t have a Quirk?
He glanced over at Izuku, noting the way the kid had shuffled further backwards, as if hiding himself from view. As if he fully expected Hizashi to dismiss him too now, and decided to do it himself before Hizashi could.
And – no.
Hizashi felt a surge of rage sweep over him, so strong he could hear his blood pulsing in his ears. No. No fucking way. No more. His hands clenched into fists, and he whirled back towards the receptionist, who had turned back to her screen, clearly believing the conversation to be over.
“I’m adopting him.”
The receptionist’s head snapped back up. So did Izuku’s.
Honestly, even Hizashi himself was a little surprised at the words that had come out of his mouth. But now that they had, he wouldn’t dream of taking them back. Not because of the extremely satisfying way the woman’s mouth dropped open in shock. Not even because of the flash of hope he saw in Izuku’s eyes before the boy managed to hide it. But because the words felt right. This was the right thing to do, he knew it, he felt it in his bones.
And at that moment, he didn’t think of what it would mean, for him, for Shouta, for their lives as they knew them. Didn’t let himself think past anything but the feeling of rightness as he spoke the words. They felt so good that he said them again. “I’m adopting him.”
“W-what?” both the receptionist and Izuku stuttered.
He ignored the woman and turned towards the kid. The six-year-old boy who had been told he was worthless, that he didn’t deserve to even dream of anything more than just existing. The child looked stunned, unable to comprehend the words.
Hizashi softened his gaze and walked over, kneeling down in front of him. “Kiddo. Izuku. I know it’s sudden, and you barely know me. But I meant what I said. I will adopt you, if you are willing. Because you deserve more than this, okay? You deserve people who care about you, and family dinners, and a warm bed. You deserve a home, sweetheart. And I would love nothing more than to give that to you.”
Izuku’s face had gone completely blank again, and it was impossible to tell what he was feeling. Hizashi felt worry stir in his gut, and it was only that split second of hope he’d seen in the boy’s eyes earlier that kept him from back-pedalling. Instead, he slowly spread his arms in a silent offer, and waited.
It was so quiet, he could hear his heart beating. Once. Twice.
And then Izuku shot forward, barrelling into him for the second time that evening. Hizashi wrapped his arms around him, rocking and hugging him tightly. He pressed a kiss into the boy’s curls, and that was it. The boy wailed. Loud, wracking sobs that shook his whole body. These were not the tears of a happy child, or a relieved child. These were the tears of a child who had been utterly broken by everyone around him, and was allowing himself to let go and let someone catch him for the first time in quite possibly forever.
Hizashi’s heart shattered as he listened to the kid—his kid—cry, even as his resolve steeled. Never again. Not ever again would this child feel unwanted, or unloved. He swore it silently, sending up a vow to whatever god would listen.
Eventually, Izuku’s sobs quietened again, and Hizashi could only feel damp breaths against his neck. He shifted slightly, making to stand up, and Izuku whimpered. “Ssh,” he murmured. “I’m not letting you go.” He tightened his grip on the boy and rose, and Izuku immediately clamped his legs around him like a vice. Hizashi was not complaining. He probably needed the child close as much as Izuku needed him right now.
He turned back to face the receptionist, who was still staring at him, incredulous. “I’m adopting him,” he said for a third time, just because he could. He fished his wallet out of his pocket with one hand and took out his hero license. “I’m Hizashi Yamada, registered Pro Hero Present Mic. I know you will need a few days to arrange the adoption papers—” He knew it was generally closer to a few weeks, but he would push them and make this as difficult for them as he possibly could, “—but Izuku is clearly not safe here, and I have an emergency foster license. I am taking him home with me, right now.”
Leaving the woman to gape at him, he turned his head towards Izuku’s. Quietly, he murmured in his ear, “Do you have anything you’d like to take with you, sweetheart?”
It was quiet for a moment, and then he felt a nod against his neck.
“Okay,” he said. “Lead me to your room, darling.”
Izuku directed him to his room—the fucking laundry room, and had Hizashi not been carrying Izuku, he would have marched straight back out and murdered the people who had put him there—and, after Hizashi had set him down, Izuku dug an old pillowcase out from under a pile of thin blankets in the corner. He took out a battered notebook that he clutched to his chest, before turning back to Hizashi. Upon realising that this one thing was all the kid had that he valued, Hizashi briefly shut his eyes to fight back tears. After a moment, he opened them again and gave the boy a trembling smile. “Ready to go, kiddo?”
Izuku nodded, and Hizashi lifted him into his arms again. The kid was frighteningly light, and he made a mental note to fix that. There were… a lot of things that had to be fixed. And to be done. It was honestly overwhelming and certainly more than he could handle right now, so for now, he would focus on getting Izuku out of here. One thing at a time.
They headed back towards the front hall, and he glared at the receptionist, who was now on the phone with someone. “We’ll be leaving now. I promise Izuku will not return here, ever again.”
Izuku let out a shuddering breath against his neck.
The woman still looked utterly befuddled at the course this night had taken.
“Oh,” Hizashi added over his shoulder before he reached the door, raising his voice a little, using just enough of his Quirk that the phone receiver would be able to pick up his voice. “You can expect an official investigation into this place, starting tomorrow. No one here should be allowed to ever take care of a child again, and I’ll make sure they won’t.”
She blanched, and an agitated rush of speech could be heard from the other end of the line. Allowing that scene to bring a darkly satisfied smile to his lips, Hizashi stepped through the door and out into the open air. He stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, feeling the weight of the shift his life had just undergone. It was heavy, and big, and terrifying—and yet, despite all that… the weight of responsibility had never been so welcome.
He breathed in the cool night air, feeling one of Izuku’s curls brush his cheek. Pressing a kiss to the top of his head, he headed for his car, murmuring quietly into his ear, “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go home.”
***
[two hours later]
[11:23pm] Hizashi: Soooo.
[11:23pm] Sho <3: what did you do.
[11:24pm] Hizashi: [picture of Izuku, safely tucked into their bed, a mess of bright green hair splayed out across the pillow and their cat Fish curled up at his feet]
[11:24pm] Hizashi: We have a kid now.
[11:26pm] Sho <3: …
[11:26pm] Sho <3: sigh.
[11:27pm] Sho <3: i guess you did say you’d take revenge the last time i brought home another cat
[11:27pm] Hizashi: :)
[11:27pm] Hizashi: I love you.
[11:29pm] Sho <3: …love you too. tell the kid i’ll meet him soon