Chapter Text
One night, Eri has a very bad nightmare.
She’s getting a little better with those. The nightmares are getting less frequent as Eri settles in U.A. but Shouta knows that it’s still something to be expected, considering. There’s nothing surprising about it, even pro heroes have those, once in a while.
But Eri is just so young . Too young to be having such horrific, precise nightmares. She should be afraid of the monster hiding in her closet. She should not be terrified of being trapped in a basement again, of being experimented on again. She shouldn’t be scared that someone is going to take her away from U.A. Eri shouldn’t even be here, in the first place. Sometimes Shouta looks at her, and it breaks his heart that she’s here.
He’s happy that Eri is safe, and he’s happy to be Eri’s guardian, really. Shouta can see that she’s happy in U.A, too. But she shouldn’t have to be there. Eri should be with her parents, her family. She should go to school and have friends her age, and play and laugh and cry for some childish things like not getting the last piece of cake. Not because she believes she’s cursed.
Eri should not scream in the middle of the night and sob and choke on her panic.
It’s pretty late that night, but Shouta is still up — when is he not, really? — grading some history papers in the small kitchen of the teachers’ dorms. All the other teachers went to sleep long ago, and Shouta finds himself enjoying a little peace and quiet. It is something rare these days, that is with the Hell Class and the loud bickering among teachers — that Shouta no longer has to stand only the break room, but also in the dorms — and Hizashi’s general presence, and well… mostly, his Hell Class.
Then, he hears the high-pitched shriek coming from Eri’s room. He bolts upwards, nearly sending the chair tumbling on the floor, and rushes to her room. He opens her door, with more strength that he likes to acknowledge, and crouches in front of her bed, as the little girl seems to be struggling intensely with her own bedsheets.
“Eri,” he calls in a low voice, reaching for the covers. “Eri, it’s okay, you’re fine.”
Shouta pulls her bedsheets, and it’s enough for Eri to sit briskly on her bed, gasping for air. Her eyes are open and wet, but unseeing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please , I won’t do it again,” she hiccups, “please, just don’t hurt anyone, I’m sorry…”
Shouta reaches for her hand and holds it tight, in an attempt to ground her, as Eri continues to blurt out heartbreaking pleas and apologies relative to her nightmare. Memories, perhaps. Shouta hates it.
“Eri,” he calls again, and raises his free hand to hook a finger under her chin. “Look at me. You’re safe. It’s me.”
Eri blinks in the darkness, searching his face as if she’s trying to place him from somewhere. As she does, tears roll on her cheeks and tumbles on her chest, which heaves from the raspy breaths.
“E-Eraserhead?”
“Yes,” he offers her a small smile. “Hi. You’re in U.A, remember?”
Her hold on his hand tightens and nods. Eri looks around the room, making out the shape of the different furnitures and objects in her room. Her horn doesn't seem to have gotten bigger, but her forehead is damped in sweat. Shouta pushes the covers away a little more, which she seems to appreciate. Her breath catches on her throat again, making her cough.
“Take it easy, Eri. You had a nightmare, but you’re okay now. It was just a bad dream. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
She lowers her head, and her shoulders shake. Shouta sits on the bed in front of her, slightly opening his arms, letting Eri choose if she needs it or not. She apparently does, as she buries her face in his chest. Shouta rubs her back, slowly, taking calm breaths so that she can match her breathing to his.
They stay like this for a little while, and Eri begins to relax.
“I’m sorry,” she eventually whispers.
“What for?”
“Did I wake you up again?”
“No,” and it’s the truth, but Shouta really doesn’t care if she wakes him or not. “I was grading papers.”
“From Deku’s class?”
“From Deku’s class.”
Eri nods against him. “Seems important.”
“Not really. They’re not really good.”
“The papers?”
Shouta hums in agreement. The Hell Class in itself is gifted, no one can say otherwise and Shouta has no doubt that his students will become some of the best heroes of their generation. What they lack is seriousness when it comes to un-heroic-related subjects.
Eri pulls away and looks at him, silently. Shouta can’t help but brush the little string of hair that’s sticking to her face. She bites her lower lip and Shouta just knows she’s going to ask something.
“Can I see?”
“Don’t you want to get back to sleep?”
The frantic shake of Eri’s head is enough of an answer for Shouta not to insist. He nods, getting up. Eri has had a long day, Shouta knows she’s tired because she fell asleep in the blink of an eye that evening. But if she doesn’t feel like going back to bed, alone with her thoughts and fears, Shouta isn’t about to push. Sleep will come to her soon enough. And really, who’s Shouta to give sleeping advice?
He waits for her, and as expected she grabs his hand as soon as she gets up from her bed. Shouta has done this enough times to know how clingy Eri can get after her nightmares. Not that he minds.
This one must have been bad, though; if Eri’s tight hold and close trailing after him is any indication.
In the kitchen, they find Hizashi, who’s leaning on the counter. He frowns at Shouta, who offers him a reassuring shrug, communicating that he’s handling the situation. Hizashi’s bed hair is wilder than ever, poking in directions that aren’t following the laws of gravity; and normally, it would get a chuckle out of Eri.
There, she just lowers her head.
“Sorry I woke you up, Present Mic.”
Hizashi’s lips twitch a little, but it goes unnoticed by Eri. He raises the glass of water he’s holding in his right hand and shakes his head in exaggerated confusion.
“What do you mean, little one? I just came here for water.”
Eri nods and gives him a shy smile.
“Alright now, I’ll let you go back to your shenanigans. Don’t stay up too late, kiddos !”
Even while exiting a room, Hizashi manages to be loud. Shouta rolls his eyes, not without fondness — knowing Hizashi for over fifteen years, he’s well past the exasperation. He opens the fridge and gestures at the milk, questioningly. Eri nods, and Shouta fills two glasses before putting the bottle back and going to sit. Without any hesitation, Eri climbs on his knees and looks at the various papers in front of her.
“This is Sero’s one,” he points. “It’s not the worst, but it’s very incomplete.”
“How so?”
Shouta begins to explain, describing the various things that Sero has missed and why those are important elements. He eventually shows her Yaoyorozu’s paper, which is by far the best Shouta has read yet. Eri seems very interested, but Shouta isn’t surprised.
Because they don’t know whether or not Eri would be okay in a normal school, the faculty members have decided to wait a little; and Nedzu has offered to tutor her the time being. He was an excellent teacher before he became an excellent principal, and he clearly has a gift with kids. It probably helps that he is adorable and that he looks like a teddy bear, but Shouta knows better than to say that to his face. Since Togata hasn’t much to do these days, he also helps her a little, which gives him an excuse to stick around in U.A.
Both of them have reported how serious, curious and attentive Eri is, something she also demonstrates while trying to understand her quirk with Shouta.
Eventually, Eri starts to read the other corrected essays and Shouta goes back to his grading. His handwriting is a little off with Eri on his knees, but his students already complain about that on a daily basis, so he doesn’t mind.
“I think you’re harsh with Chargebolt,” she says at one point.
Shouta snorts, not looking up from Iida’s paper.
“That’s because I know Kaminari didn’t study for the test.”
“Nuh-uh. I’ve seen him study with Earphone Jack.”
“Really?” Shouta takes a sip from his glass. “That would be a first. It’s a pretty decent grade, still.”
Eri shrugs, and squints again at her pile of corrected essays. Shouta shakes his head, but he still takes a second look at Kaminari’s paper once he’s done with Iida’s.
“I also think that you’re harsh with Uravity, you know.” Eri speaks again, half an hour later.
Again, Shouta doesn’t look up, “Please elaborate.”
“Well, she put a lot of information about the aftermath of the battle.” She points at the sheet of paper. “See? She had the exact numbers of victims, the names of every hero involved in the rescue operation. Those are details that many of the other students have missed. Even Creati didn’t mention this much. Some parts were missing some, uh…”
“Depth.”
“Yes. But rescue is Uravity’s thing, and that part is really complete.” Eri puts her elbow on the table, and rests her chin in her palm, turning to Shouta. “Is rescue less important than suppression?”
Shouta rolls his eyes, “No.” He snatches Uraraka’s paper from Eri. “Quit telling me how to grade my students.”
Shouta modifies Urakaka’s grade, because Eri is sort of right in her own way; and it’s a really long chapter; Shouta can humour his students once in a while. They’ve been working hard in training these days.
Eri keeps on staring at him.
“You’re a mean teacher, Eraserhead.”
“Yes, and I’m a mean person too. Now let me work.”
Eri’s eyes glistened with amusement, and she looks like she’s about to say something but she doesn’t, shrugging instead. Eri is getting wittier, that much Shouta has noticed, and he is convinced that this is the result of her mingling with his Hell Class.
“You’re biased because you like them,” Shouta points out.
Eri hums, looking vaguely at the papers. She seems to think about the statement for a second, and then glances up at Shouta.
“I think you’re too harsh because you like them.”
Shouta blinks at her, but eventually rolls his eyes, getting back to his papers. He pinches his lips. Shouta has always been a strict teacher, ask any member of the faculty. He has always appreciated his students, however, and ultimately wanted what’s best for them. It’s the same with the Hell Class, of course. Except, if anything, he appreciates his Hell Class less than those of the previous years: that is with the recurring threats and dangers they feel the need to run head on to, the constant bickering, the injuries, the property damages… So much property damages for only 20 teenagers. Even for U.A which is used to quirks’ mishaps, it’s reaching new levels.
So if anything, Shouta should be biased because he doesn’t like them.
He hears All Might’s voice, pointing out how he didn’t expel anyone this year, and Shouta glares angrily at the table.
________________________
Their glasses of milk are long gone when Shouta is done with the grading, and it’s well past a six-year-old’s bedtime. Still, as Shouta reaches the end of his students’ works, he notices how fidgety Eri gets. She has tired written all over her face, but she fumbles with a bit of paper, nervously.
The second Shouta puts down his pen, Eri bursts into tears. He gently grabs her shoulders and manoeuvers her so that she’s facing him.
“I’m sorry,” she hiccups.
“Don’t be.”
Eri starts to play with a loose string on Shouta’s shirt, and he lets her, while she attempts to get control over her crying. She’s not very successful, but Shouta is patient. Eri’s brutal reaction is probably reinforced by her tiredness, but if the single thought of going back to bed leads her to sob uncontrollably like so, Shouta won’t force her. His own eyes begin to sting a little, but he isn’t about to put a distressed child to bed for something that trivial.
“Do you want to tell me about what this is about?” He asks.
Eri shrugs. “I don’t know.”
That’s a lie, one he has heard many times from various students over the years. Yet, Shouta thinks that maybe there’s some truth to that; Eri is way too young to have experienced what she has. While he’s sure she knows why she’s crying — because it terrifies her to sleep, because of the nightmares — she might not be able to express her own anguish.
“It’s okay.”
Eri sniffles, a new wave of tears seizing her, and she grabs Shouta’s shirt a little tighter. Shouta pulls her close and her shoulders shake harder with her sobs.
“E-every time I…” she tries. “I like it so m-much here. I really l-like it. It m-makes me smile every day.”
“I know.”
Because Shouta has eyes and he sees how balanced and happy Eri is. Her evolution and her growth is truly astonishing. Even when she’s working on figuring out her quirk, which always takes a little toll on her, she seems calmer than she did a month ago.
“B-but…I forget ,” her sobbing gets a little harsher at the confession. “When I s-sleep, I forget that I’m here, and I don’t w-want to! I r-really thought I was g-getting better, and I’m not !”
“You are,” Shouta assures. “You are getting better, Eri. You just have to give it time.”
“But it makes m-me so… what’s the word? Frustrated !”
“You have to be patient with yourself. Hey,” Shouta pushes her away slightly and looks at her. “You’ve only just started. You’re still getting used to so many things, new things, things that you like. It takes time. Your brain,” he pats on the temple, “is still getting used to it, too.”
“But I w-want it now .”
Shouta nods. “I know. You’re doing great, Eri. And it will get better, I promise.”
Eri cries harder and Shouta holds her. They stay like this until Eri is mostly calm, hiccuping weakly against Shouta’s chest, exhausted by her two crying sessions of the night.
They don’t go back to sleep, though.
Eri starts to get cold so Shouta eventually leads her to the living room, making her sit on the couch. He wraps her in a blanket and apart from her face looking all red and puffy, it’s an adorable sight. He sits next to her, and grabs the remote of the TV, flicking the channels a few times in order to find something for Eri to watch.
It ends up being old reruns of All Might cartoons and Shouta rolls his eyes, annoyed.
Eri sags against him and he puts his arm around her, as she points out that it’s not All Might’s real voice.
___________________
“Wakey wakey, Sunshine!”
Shouta groans heavily at Hizashi’s very loud awakening, his face probably inches from Shouta’s ears. He curls against the couch, trying to escape this absolute torture.
“I took a lot of pictures,” Hizashi singsongs, literally in his ear, “and they’re all very sweeeeet.”
Shouta groans again. This means blackmail and he hates it when Hizashi does that. Then, he remembers he fell asleep on the couch with Eri against him. But he can’t feel Eri.
He sits upward in an instant. “Eri!”
“...is in the kitchen with Nemuri,” Hizashi finishes, avoiding Shouta’s head by pure force of habit. “She woke up about half an hour ago.”
“Is she…”
“A little cinnamon roll, as usual,” Hizashi provides again. “She’s fine.”
“Good.” He nods. Hitashi holds him a warm mug of coffee and Shouta could cry of happiness. “Thanks.”
“ You, on the other hand,” Hizashi smiles, sitting on the coffee table, “are in trouble. Classes start in ten minutes and you look like shit. Good luck, Sunshine!”
“Fuck,” Shouta grunts. “I hate you.”
Hizashi has the audacity to giggle like the dumb child that he is but makes the safe choice to leave the living room. Shouta’s binding cloth hits him in the face, and Hizashi cackles louder.
___________________
Shouta sure makes an impression when he walks into the classroom. Not only because he’s late and ‘ looks like shit’ but mostly because Eri walks in with him. She lets go of his hand for the first time since he woke up, and giggles as she rushes to the front desk.
Eri puts both her hands on the desk.
“Alright, I will be making class today.”
When Shouta had met her in the kitchen, Eri had been speaking in a low voice with Togata, who was supposed to take care of her today. Togata had been nodding very seriously, at every thing the little girl was saying, a hand on her shoulder. Eri had run in Shouta’s arms and not let go for a solid minute. She’d whispered small thank you s against his neck, and taken a deep breath holding him tight. Then, Eri had turned to him with big, puppy dog eyes and asked if she could go to class with him. Shouta swore that Togata had puppy-eyed along with her.
And so, Eri is now in class 1-A. Sue him. Her face still looks tired, as she clearly didn't get enough sleep last night, but her eyes shine with amusement and curiosity.
“Eri,” he scolds, pushing her away from the desk.
“Eri-chan!” Midoriya exclaims, followed a second later by half of the class.
“Hello everyone!” She waves. “So, we graded your history papers.”
“Eri,” Shouta warns, again. He pulls the chair from under the teacher’s desk and looks pointedly at her. “Sit.”
“Sorry.”
She doesn’t sound sorry, not even one bit.
_________________
No one seems to question Eri’s presence all morning. If anything, it seems to lift the students' spirits. Even Bakugou’s, who only vaguely grunts something about the stray pet following them everywhere. Eri hears and beams right at him. Bakugou simply rolls his eyes , and Shouta feels like Eri has more than one quirk. Ojiro tears a sheet of paper from his workbook, holds it to Eri along with a few pens, and Shoji whispers ‘ Do a good one of Aizawa-sensei’.
Eri gets to drawing with purpose.
The weirdest thing is that class 1-A, the Hell Class , is oddly calm all morning. If Shouta had known, he would have brought a child earlier.
When lunchtime rings, Eri quickly runs to Midoriya to whisper something in his ear and he nods at her, with a smile.
“Are you okay?” He asks, as she moves back, eyeing her face.
Eri nods. “I am.”
Midoriya ruffles her hair, which makes her squeak. “I’m glad you’re here today.”
Shouta really thinks that Eri is going to run off with her 1-A friends but she comes back to him, grabbing his hand, tentatively. There’s a question in her eyes, but Shouta bats it away.
“Want to go take a nap?”
“But it’s lunchtime.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
_________________
When Shouta comes back from the restroom, he finds Eri chatting excitedly with Principal Nedzu. He sits back next to her and hears Nedzu laugh.
“... learn that from Aizawa-sensei?”
“Yes,” Eri chips, excitedly. “He explained this while he was grading his papers. I’d really like it if we did more history together.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that.”
A little after that, Eri gets into a very lively conversation with Cementos and Midnight about the All Might cartoons and Shouta takes this opportunity to lean over the table and inform Nedzu about Eri’s presence in class today.
“I know this isn't standard procedure, but she didn’t disrupt the students,” Shouta assures, “Eri had a little incident last night and well, uh.”
Shouta tries to think of a better way to explain this than ‘ the child wanted to stay with me and I couldn’t say no because she’s quite adorable’ . Because, while Shouta knows this is technically what happened, there has to be a more professional way to phrase it.
“I know,” Nedzu replies, good-heartedly. “I’ve been made aware of the situation. It seems like Eri could use a little break, does she?”
The principal glances at Eri, with a soft smile. Shouta nods and some parts of his brain notices that Eri somehow has all of U.A wrapped around her fingers, and probably doesn’t even know it.
Nedzu chuckles. “You really shouldn’t let Eri grade your class’ work, though.”
_____________________
Shouta bumps into All Might in the hallway, who tells him Hizashi has shown him the pictures he took from this morning. All Might laughs, probably because of Shouta’s desperate face, and gives him a friendly punch on the shoulder.
For a retired hero, the Symbol of Peace is still a brute.
(Shouta texts Hizashi that he will strangle him in his sleep, and the only answer he gets is three kissing face emojis.)
__________________
Shouta’s afternoon class is training. Which probably isn’t the ideal moment for Eri to be here, he thinks.
However, Eri shrieks when she sees Class 1-A in their hero gear, most of them for the first time. She runs to each and everyone of them, yapping about their respective costumes and how ‘ they look so much better in real life than in Deku’s notebooks ’, observing them from every side. Kaminari whacks the back of Midoriya's head and scolds him for making a nerd out of Eri but his students indulge her geeking out. Shouta lets her too, only getting mildly concerned when he hears Eri yell about how cool Bakugou’s grenades look.
Just as Shouta is about to finally start his class, because he’s still the teacher around here; Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami approach Eri.
“I made you something,” Yaoyorozu tells her, holding a red notebook. “Hopefully thanks to it, you won’t get bored while we train.”
“We’re expecting your feedback, Eri,” Tokoyami nods, very seriously. “All of Class 1-A is counting on you.”
Eri’s face lights up and she looks like she’s about to cry from pure happiness. It’s an astonishing change from last night, and Shouta certainly did not expect to see her this delighted when Eri had run in his arms this morning.
Eri rushes to sit in a corner where she has a pretty good overall view of the training ground, and Shouta wonders when and how she ended up this close to his Hell Class.
_____________________
Of course, Eri gives them a full feedback in the evening, in the common room of 1-A dorms. One that would put Shouta in shame, if he wasn’t so flabbergasted by how thorough and meticulous her analysis is.
Eri sits next to Togata, who has apparently been invited for dinner by Midoriya from what Shouta manages to gather, and speaks rapidly, her hands moving all over the place, as she makes precise points about today’s training. She glances at her new notebook from time to time, but Bakugou ends up snatching it from her. He snickers mockingly, but Eri seems unfazed. She tells him to ' wait for his turn ’ clasping her tongue in her mouth.
Bakugou ends up throwing the notebook at Midoriya, who catches it, frowning scoldingly at him. Midoriya peeks at it, and doesn’t look up from the notebook for the remainder of Eri’s feedback, mumbling under his breath.
Shouta stands, leaning on the doorway, taking in the common room and just… observes.
How at ease Eri is in such a big crowd, how her cheeks are rosy from happiness and from the attention she receives. How his students listen to her, laugh along with her, as if Eri has been part of the class since day one.
It’s not the first time Shouta sees her interacting with his students. He’s been monitoring her behavior since Eri's got here. Shouta has walked into the dorms enough time in the evening to find Eri enrolled in a game, a chat or a kitchen duty, and he knows that she spends her entire Sundays at the dorms.
But this is so different from how Eri acted yesterday night. He thinks back to what Eri has told him about how much she likes it here and how she has struggled to explain it. And Shouta thinks that, maybe, it’s because Eri finally feels at home somewhere but doesn’t know what a home is. She is finally happy and loved, for the first time in her life. Of course she would be terrified to lose that feeling.
Dinner is still loud and hellish, as to be expected. Ojiro and Sero engage in a food war at some point on the opposite side of the table, which makes Iida get up and yell at them. Jirou manages to hit Kaminari’s forehead with a spoon. Bakugou shouts at someone for something.
But Eri giggles, all the way.
After dinner, when Shouta is done cleaning the table with Uraraka, Shoji and Midoriya — you know, you really don’t have to, Sensei; we’re taking care of it — Yaoyorozu makes them all tea and they sit in the common room. Eri goes around the room asking to see everyone’s quirk. His students are all busy with something or other, but the ease and patience they demonstrate in dealing with Eri tells Shouta that this has happened before.
Bakugou raises a hand without looking up from his phone and small sparks bloom in his palm.
“Come on, Kacchan, stop messing around!” Eri chuckles.
Bakugou smirks discreetly, and a relatively small explosion in his standards echoes in the room.
“Piss off now, or the next one is for your face.”
Iida runs into the kitchen and gets her an apple in record time. Shoji extends his arms into multiple hands and Eri makes a point in shaking all of them. Uraraka makes her float a few centimeters off the floor and Eri bursts into laughter. She touches Kirishima’s arm as he hardens. Without losing her focus on her homeworks Yaoyorozu creates a stuffed bear from her thigh — and wow, now Shouta knows where Eri’s teddy bears come from . Eri pats Dark Shadows' beak for a little while and Shouta could swear that Dark Shadow purrs .
Even Todoroki seems to humour her. He extends his right hand and a small piece of ice falls in her hand.
“Now the other side, please.”
Todoroki smiles softly at her as he extends his other hand, and a small flame appears in the crook of his palm.
“So pretty,” Eri lets out, the flame flickering under her breath. “Thank you, Shouto.”
Eventually, once she’s done with everyone, Eri comes to stand in front of Shouta with expecting eyes. Shouta cocks an eyebrow at her and she makes a little hand gesture directed at him.
“It only works with other people’s quirks,” he reminds her.
Eri pouts. “But… Do the hair-thingy.”
Shouta rolls his eyes and activates his quirk, his hair effectively going up in the air. Eri beams and pats his knee, excitedly.
“Breathtaking as always, Sensei,” Kaminari snorts.
It’s only to show Eri his other abilities that Shouta’s binding cloth goes to slap the back of Kaminari’s head.
______________________
“Did you have a good day?” Shouta asks a little later, as Eri rests her cheek against his arm.
“It was amazing . Thank you.”
“Do you feel like going to bed?”
There’s a little moment of silence after he speaks, and Shouta feels Eri move against him. He looks down to find her staring at him, intensely.
“Yes. I am.”
________________
After that day, Shouta begins to truly observe Eri’s interactions with his Hell Class. Before that, he truly just acknowledged the fact that Eri was spending time with them, getting to know them and opening up to other people. Since Shouta had hardly ever been called to fix a crisis situation, he honestly thought that it was a good thing. Being around people is part of Eri’s rehabilitation, after all.
But after that night, witnessing just how comfortable everyone is and how easily Eri fits with his students, Shouta gets curious. And so, he actually begins to study them.
And it’s not that he doesn’t like what he sees.
It’s that he really doesn’t like what he sees.
Once, after an evening faculty meeting that has dragged on, Shouta walks into the dorms to retrieve Eri and get her to bed, only to find her crawling on the ceiling like some sort of human-like spider. She crawls to him with remarkable speed as if Eri is used to it and she beams at him from the ceiling. Her hair dangles down and nearly brushes the tip of Shouta’s nose. It takes Shouta a second to understand that it’s Uraraka’s doing and that she has used her quirk on Eri, allowing her to float, resulting in her ceiling escapade.
Out of the six students present at that moment, only Midoriya has the decency to acknowledge Shouta.
“Don’t worry, Sensei! Everything is under control!”
And well, it looks like it. But still, Midoriya has not the decency to look a little bit sorry about encouraging Eri to crawl on the ceiling.
Another time, Shouta enters the kitchen to find Dark Shadow chasing a giggling, out of breath Eri. Tokoyami trails after them, shouting something about the darkness. Dark Shadow answers that by croaking, as an actual raven would. Eri almost collapses from laughing too hard, circling the table and yelling ‘ caw caw ’ as she flaps her arms.
Shouta exits the kitchen, absolutely disconcerted and bumps into Ojiro.
“Hi, Sensei. They’re playing Bird Tag.”
Ojiro keeps on walking, and before Shouta can say anything — for example ask what on earth Bird Tag is — a huge tumbling noise rises from the kitchen.
Ojiro doesn’t even stop, shrugging, “Uh, Dark Shadow won.”
On a Wednesday, Shouta and All Might arrive in the dorms and find absolutely no one. They look into the common room, the kitchen, the dining room and just as they are about to go look for their students on the upper floors, admittedly a little alarmed; they hear a noise from the basement, where the gym is.
They both rush down the stairs, and All Might punches the door open.
Todoroki has apparently turned the gym into an ice skating ground.
Midoriya, Full Cowl activated, holds Eri’s hand as they rapidly glide — when did Eri learn to do that?! — up on a slide that Todoroki creates on the spot; and Midoriya lets go of Eri as she soars in the air, shouting with glee. Asui catches her with her tongue. Ashido applauds a few feet away from them and shouts something about this jump being flawless. This jump?!
“Oh hi, Senseis,” Kaminari greets besides them. “Do you want to try? Yaoyorozu can make you some skates!”
No matter how much he wants to, this time Shouta doesn’t flee and they all get a week of detention. In addition to defrosting the gym.
This isn’t even the worst.
One of the most traumatic things that Shouta witnesses is Bakugou and Eri, bickering with one another. Midoriya is standing between the two of them, as if trying to temporise the situation, while they're engaged in a truly astonishing shouting match.
“... such an idiot !” Eri yells. “Everyone knows the best animals are dogs !”
“Lions are way more powerful, you stupid worm ! You just like dogs because they’re cute, you can’t base a rating system on that!”
“How dare you!” Eri gasps. “Dogs aren’t just cute, they are fierce, fast and loyal, which is far better than ridiculous lions. Dogs can do anything a lion can and even more!”
“Dogs just sit around all day and fetch stupid frisbees!”
Midoriya seems on the verge of dying, “Guys, quiet down, you both make valid points and—“
“Shut it, stupid Deku!”
“Don’t interrupt, Deku!” Eri snaps, in sync with Bakugou. “This is a serious conversation.”
“No, it isn’t,” Bakugou groans, throwing his hands in the air. “Because you’re being delusional!”
“You only like lions because they have stupid pointy hair like you!”
“ HUH?!”
Bakugou takes a menacing step forward and Midoriya puts both hands on his shoulders to restrain him. Bakugou manages to free one of his hands and points a finger at Eri. She glares at him, defyingly.
“I swear, I will blast you in the face, stray pet!”
Eri puts her hands on her hips, “Oh yeah? Well, I can rewind your life to the point you weren’t even born!”
This is the first time Shouta hears Eri speak of her quirk in an unfearing way. It’s astonishing. Bakugou yells something that Shouta doesn’t quite catch, still focusing on Eri’s reply; and Eri sticks her tongue at him.
Bakugo sticks his tongue back.
“Oh hi Sensei,” Jirou says as she sees him. She follows his eyes and sighs. “Oh, they’re still at it, uh? Don’t pay attention to them, they’re originally fighting over what’s for dinner, but we’ve decided for them. Is curry okay for you, Sensei?”
Shouta is pretty sure he hears Eri say shit at one point.
___________________
“In a way, Eri is doing a lot better since she’s started hanging out with your students,” Hizashi points out one night, as Shouta tells him about his latest discovery. “She’s not shy, anymore.”
“She’s turning into them.”
Hizashi tilts his head and takes a sip of his tea, and it clearly looks like he’s about to say they’re not that bad. Shouta must discourage him from vocalizing this thought. How can he even think that?! He’s their English teacher. Do they not give him hell, like they do with Shouta? And if they do, does Hizashi like it?
“She’s a six-year-old kid, acting in consequence.”
“She,” Shouta hisses, “is a six-year-old kid, hanging with a bunch of overpowered four-year-old.”
“But she’s having fun, though.”
“Hizashi,” Shouta sighs, rubbing his temples tiredly. “When I came into the dorms today, they were throwing her in the air like a basketball , and Eri giggled. She has no sense of danger.”
Hizashi nods, and thinks for a little while. Then he grabs his tea and gets up, which indicates that he’s about to say something that is going to upset Shouta.
“ Or, the kid feels safe with them,” he smirks, making his way into the kitchen, “and you have a stick up in your butt.”
______________
It’s not like Shouta can do anything about it, really. He can’t do anything for the Hell Class, no matter how much he yells, and how many detentions he gives.
And it’s not like he can forbid Eri from seeing them. He could, but Shouta is not a monster. He doesn’t need stupid Hizashi to tell him how happy and safe Eri feels around them. Anyone with eyes can see that.
Shouta just wishes that things could be as calm when Eri is with the Hell Class than when she is with the Third Years. But Shouta has come to see that chaos has spread to the Big Three when they come to eat with Class 1-A.
Sometimes, Shouta wishes that he was the homeroom teacher of 1-B. Or not a teacher at all.
But on those days, because fate hates Shouta, he walks into the dorms and something amazing happens.
Like today.
Eri runs in his arms, dressed up in a hero gear that Shouta has never seen before. She turns on herself, babbling about how Yaoyorozu has created the fabric and various elements of the costume, and how Uraraka and Shoji helped to assemble everything together, and how Midoriya made some adjustments to make it more practical and realistic — just like a real hero, Eraserhead, look, look — and how Aoyama has chosen the colors; all of that from looking at her notebook at the made-up idea of her hero costume that Eri had drew for herself.
As a surprise for Eri.
“Look, Aizawa-sensei, look ,” Eri yaps, extending her arm where a piece of white fabric is wrapped around her wrist. “I have a wrist scarf, just like your scarf ! To catch villains, like you! It doesn’t work like yours because it’s not the same fabric but I’m like you !”
Shouta’s heart melts, but Eri doesn’t seem to notice as she goes on describing every other aspect of her costume. She has a cape, ‘ just like Lemillion! ’ and a hood ‘ like Suneater, but wait! ’. As she puts on the hood, bunny-looking ears come up ‘ just like Deku’s mask, you see?’ ’
Her bodysuit looks a lot at Uraraka’s and her strap-boots are almost identical to Kirishima’s. Eri also wears two sets of belts on her hips. One looks a lot like Todoroki’s, the other is the exact same one as Bakugou’s.
“And you see, Kacchan will make me sweat grenades, that I will put here,” Eri explains.
“Like hell I will,” Bakugou groans. “And stop calling it sweat grenades !”
When the Big Three, and then All Might arrives in the 1-A dorms a little later and compliment Eri on her costume, Eri bursts into happy tears, hiccuping frantic thank you s and I love it so much and I’ve never been happier in my entire life, as if she’s stuck in a loop. She wipes her face with the ‘ wrist scarf ’ but Eri has the brightest smile all the while she cries.
“Group hug!” Ashido shouts, wrapping her arms around Eri, quickly followed by the rest of the students.
Watching Eri wrapped up in so much love and kindness, Shouta feels like maybe, it’s worth the worry.
(Eri sleeps fully dressed in her hero costume that night, and neither of the faculty members have the heart to tell her no.)