Chapter Text
He had never felt like this. Before, with his dad, he was so afraid and everything hurt, and it was so hard to pretend that his Quirk was different, but he had to. His dad couldn’t know that he was just like him. He had an evil Quirk, but if everyone thought it was a good Quirk then he could be good too!
The heroes were so nice to him, so he would be good for them. They weren’t afraid of him like the others had been. He’d never had a hug before. He liked hugs.
But he wouldn’t get hugs if they found out that his Quirk was bad, so he pretended it was good like Eraserhead’s. Even when they touched him, and he couldn’t resist that pull, as he stole their Quirks as his, he could still pretend he had a good Quirk. His dad had never found out that his Quirk was bad like his, so he could hide it from the heroes too.
But they touched him so much, and he felt so happy, and every time they touched him he pulled at that warmth inside them and took it like it was his own. It wasn’t his though, so he had to give it back, and they would never know that he was a thief, that he was bad like his dad was.
But then the loud hero, Present Mic, Hizashi, was laughing and swinging him around and touching him, and he was so happy. He’d never felt like that before. And he took Hizashi’s Quirk, like he always did, but this time he couldn’t keep it tucked away in his chest like a secret. The warmth bubbled up, the Quirk, the stolen Quirk, activated, and he just couldn’t help it…
Izuku let himself laugh.
Hizashi heard Izuku laugh.
He wasn’t wearing his hearing aids. He shouldn’t even be able to hear a motorcycle engine from this distance, but he heard Izuku laugh.
He also recognized that artificial, auto-tuned quality of it. He had grown used to hearing that since it happened every time he used his Quirk.
Izuku had used Hizashi’s Quirk.
It was clear that all three of them reached the same conclusion at the same time. From his spot in the kitchen doorway, Shouta released Erasure and simply stared as the glowing rings of Izuku’s Quirk returned. Still in Hizashi’s arms, Izuku froze.
Then, he cried.
Hizashi panicked, because there was a lot happening right now. He could feel the tingle of his missing Quirk again, and the baby was crying. Izuku was wiggling, desperately trying to wrench himself from Hizashi’s arms, and Hizashi didn’t know what he was even saying, could just see his mouth moving as he sobbed.
“Shouta!” he called, because he didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t hear anything. “The baby—”
Shouta was already there, trying to wrap Izuku in a blanket to take him safely from Hizashi’s arms, but Izuku’s sobs grew, his chest heaving, and suddenly Hizashi can hear his wailing, because he was using Voice again as he begged Hizashi not to leave.
Fighting to keep the fear out of his tone, Hizashi tried to placate him. “Izuku, baby, go with Shou for a moment. Just for a second. I promise I’ll be right back.” Finally, Shouta managed to separate them, Izuku’s Voice cutting out with the broken contact, and Hizashi darted to his bag in the entry, digging for his hearing aids. As soon as he had them, he ran back to Izuku. Shouta sat on the floor, in front of where he had placed Izuku on the couch, trying to calm him down but not touching him. Not when they didn’t know what that actually did.
Izuku was wailing, the loudest Hizashi had ever heard him before five minutes ago. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’ll never do it again, never ever, I’m sorry! I gave it back, I gave it back, I didn’t steal it! I’m not like him, I’m not bad! I don’t want to be bad, please… please…”
“Hizashi.” Shouta said sharply, eyes not straying from Izuku. “Is your Quirk still gone?”
“No,” Hizashi answered, because he could feel that it wasn’t. After separating from Izuku, it had settled tightly in his chest like it hadn’t ever left. He remembered what Izuku said about his biological father’s Quirk, what Shouta told him after the talk with All Might. If Izuku had taken Hizashi’s Quirk like he suspected, it was back now. “No… he gave it back, I think.”
Immediately, Shouta placed his hands on Izuku’s cheeks and pressed their foreheads together, uncaring of Izuku’s Quirk activating under his touch. “Kid. Izuku. Listen to me. We’re okay. You didn’t do anything that couldn’t be undone, so take a breath before you pass out. Hizashi and I aren’t mad, so relax.”
Izuku’s eyes flitted to Hizashi doubtfully, and yeah, Hizashi was a little spooked, but he wasn’t mad. Not at Izuku. Never at Izuku, not for this. So, he smiled at the baby—his baby if he was being honest with himself—and finally Izuku breathed.
The three of them sat for a moment, waiting for Izuku to match Shouta’s deliberately steady breaths. Part of Hizashi was proud, actually, and a little bit relieved that Izuku was reacting so strongly to this. Obviously, he was upset that the baby was upset, but Izuku was always so quiet about his pain, and Hizashi was glad that he was acting so vulnerably in front of them, like he subconsciously knew he was safe here.
Once Izuku was a little more settled, Hizashi held out his hands. Izuku reached back, then hesitated, so Hizashi closed the distance. “We’re not mad, baby.”
Izuku’s breath hitched, and he hiccupped, “I’m sorry I stole your Quirk. It was an accident.”
“It’s okay, Izuku,” Hizashi said softly. “I believe you. We all have accidents with our Quirks sometimes. That’s why I get so loud when I’m happy. I just can’t contain my Quirk anymore!” He squeezed Izuku’s hands. “Were you really happy, Izuku? And you just couldn’t help it?”
He nodded shyly, and Hizashi grinned. “That makes me happy! I’m happy that you were so happy, so let’s all be happy again!”
Shakily, Izuku smiled.
“Izuku,” Shouta murmured, and Hizashi was so, so proud that his husband, who was all sharp edges, was attempting to soften his voice, “was that your Quirk?” Izuku nodded. “Did you take Hizashi’s Quirk, Izuku?”
Izuku whimpered, his smile slipping. “I gave it back! I didn’t mean to! I won’t do it ever again.”
Hizashi hushed him. “It’s okay, baby.”
“Kid, we just want to help you. We can’t do that if we don’t have all the information, so we need to understand what’s going on here. Did you know your Quirk could do that?”
“Uh-huh. I don’t… I don’t like doing it though,” he sniffled.
“Okay, that’s okay. Do you have any control over it?”
“Not… not really…”
“But you gave Hizashi’s back. Did you do that on purpose?”
“I don’t like keeping them. It’s hard, and it hurts sometimes.”
Shouta tapped his fingers against Izuku’s cheeks gently. “I can’t use my Quirk right now. Are you able to?”
In answer, Izuku’s eyes glowed red.
“Wow,” Hizashi whispered, unable to keep it to himself. He’d seen copying Quirks before, sure, but this was something else. Thank goodness Shouta was so cool-headed and could approach the situation so methodically, because Hizashi was internally losing his shit.
“And if I pull away,” Shouta said, taking his hands from Izuku’s cheeks, “my Quirk comes back. You can’t hold onto it?”
Izuku chewed his lip and shook his head. “I can hold it if I try really hard. I don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“That’s stealing. My dad steals. I don’t want to.”
“It’s not stealing!” Hizashi chirped. “Not if you give it back, and you’ve given both of our Quirks back, so that’s just borrowing!”
Izuku’s tiny nose wrinkled, like an adorable rabbit. “Borrowing?”
“Yeah, kid. Borrowing,” Shouta agreed. “Why don’t you try holding onto my Quirk for as long as you can. If it starts to hurt, let go of it.”
This time, when Shouta pulled away, Izuku’s teary eyes stayed red for a couple seconds. Then, the glow petered out. “Good job, kiddo.”
Izuku sniffed and used his sleeve to wipe at the snot on his face, to Shouta’s clear disgust. “You’re… you’re really not mad?”
“Of course not, kiddo,” Hizashi reassured, while Shouta disappeared into the kitchen for tissues. “We’re a little disappointed that you didn’t tell us, but we understand. Why did you think we’d be mad?”
“My Quirk is bad, and you guys are good.”
Shouta returned and sat on the couch, using the acquired tissues to wipe the snot off of Izuku’s face. “Quirks can’t be bad, kid, only people. And you,” he poked Izuku hard in the forehead, “are not bad. You are good. Now, let me clean you up so I can ask more questions, Problem Child.”
This time, when Izuku cried, he was smiling.
Later, after Izuku had cried himself to sleep and Shouta had finished an exhausting phone call with Tsukauchi, Hizashi tugged Shouta into their bedroom.
“We’re adopting the baby, right? And no mind games with me tonight, mister! I want a simple yes or no answer from you.”
Shouta sighed, resigned. “Yes, we are adopting Izuku.”
Hizashi actually fist-pumped, causing Shouta to sigh again. “Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss, Shouta! I know you like the baby and wanna adopt him just as much as I do. I can see your little smile, don’t even bother hiding it! We’re gonna be dads, Shou! Let’s sign the papers right now, where are they?”
“Slow down, Zashi.” Shouta grabbed his husband by the upper arms and guided him to sit on the bed. “We have to figure out the logistics first. For one, we should probably talk to Izuku about this before we do anything permanent.”
Hizashi frowned. “Ya think he wouldn’t wanna be adopted by us? But we’re great! We love him!”
“I’m not saying that. We should just have a conversation with all involved parties before we jump the gun. His Quirk does complicate some things as well…”
“The kiddo just doesn’t know how to control it yet! We can’t blame him for that, Shou!”
“I know, and I am not blaming him. The fact remains that his Quirk is dangerous if it cannot be controlled, so the obvious solution is Quirk counseling. I’m the only person I trust with that. Even then, there will be people unwilling to look past the implications of his Quirk who will assume the worst of him. I refuse to advocate that he hide his Quirk, since that will only cause more issues in the future, especially psychologically, but we have to be careful about what people know. There is a positive to all this, though, in that it seems like he hid the true nature of his Quirk from his father, so the League will likely be looking for a kid with an Erasure Quirk, which we won’t register him as.”
“We can’t register it as All for One… even if that is what this is,” Hizashi pointed out. “That’ll bring some serious attention, and probably not only from the villains.”
“So, we call it something else,” Shouta said easily. “The Quirk registry is open access, but only an individual’s name and the name of their Quirk is visible publicly. Quirk descriptions are hidden without valid HC or police ID, and even that requires certain clearances. We call it something nondescript, and we keep its description vague, just in case someone manages to access that, and he won’t draw attention.”
“Oh, I know!” Hizashi raised his hand, like they were high schoolers again, and Shouta rolled his eyes but gestured for him to speak. “Call it Borrow! That could mean anything.”
“Borrow works,” Shouta agreed, mostly because he wasn’t very creative when it came to names himself and couldn’t think of anything better. “The paperwork is in the kitchen. The sooner we do this, the sooner it’s done.”
They slipped quietly into the kitchen, sparing a quick glance to Izuku sleeping blissfully on the couch with Joe purring on his stomach. Digging through the piles of paperwork on the counter, Shouta uncovered the Quirk registration and the adoption papers, the latter of which Hizashi snatched from his hands.
“I call dibs on him being a Yamada!”
Shouta shushed him. Then kicked him in the shin and shushed him again when he squawked. “He’s obviously going to be an Aizawa. We’re trying to keep the attention away from him. Your name is too well-known, and Present Mic was recognized at the villain raid.”
` “Eraserhead was at the raid too.”
“No one saw him there,” Shouta said smugly. “Besides, my civilian name and identity is not common knowledge like yours is. It’s only logical for his name to be Aizawa Izuku.” Logical, yes, but he couldn’t ignore the light feeling that rushed through his chest saying his kid’s name out loud.
“Not fair,” Hizashi pouted. “You’re only doing your whole logic thing ‘cause you want him to be an Aizawa. If we were being ‘logical’ we would just keep his name as Midoriya since that has no ties to us whatsoever.”
Shouta flushed. “No need to get riled up about it right now. We’ll still discuss the adoption with him first anyway, and it might be a good idea to wait on that until he’s more settled.”
But Hizashi immediately shook his head. “He was so scared, Shou. He thought we hated him just ‘cause his quirk’s a little… scary. He probably thinks we’re gonna up and leave him. We should tell him we want to adopt him as soon as he wakes up. Make sure he knows we’re not leaving, and we want him.”
Well, that was certainly logical.
So, they waited for Izuku to wake from his impromptu nap, sitting with him and petting his hair as he snuffled slowly back into awareness. Shouta’s fingers carding through his hair—absolutely ignoring Hizashi’s lovesick, smug look at the affectionate action—seemed to reassure Izuku, and he cuddled deeper into Shouta’s thigh, using it like a pillow.
Heart feeling much too full, Shouta tugged gently at the strands under his hands. “Wake up for us, kiddo. We wanna talk to you about something important.”
“Wha’” Izuku blinked sleepily, sitting up under Hizashi’s guiding touch. Shouta would feel bad about waking him up, especially after the fit he had earlier, but his nap had already stretched well into the evening, and Shouta wanted the kid to sleep through the night.
“Hiya there, kiddo,” Hizashi cheered, semi-quietly, when Izuku finally managed to rub the haze from his eyes. Both he and Shouta had agreed that he be the one to take the lead on this. Shouta would be the first to admit to considering himself… emotionally stunted, and this conversation would likely require a more delicate emotional touch than he could provide. He would let Hizashi take the reins and offer Izuku support through presence and touch which, according to Hizashi, was the best way to do it.
“Izuku, we love having you here, living with us. We care a lot about you, both Shou and I do, and we’d love to have you stay with us. We want to adopt you, if that’s something you want too.”
“Adopt?”
“It means we’d officially be your dads, and you’d be our son.”
Izuku frowned, burrowing deeper into Shouta’s side. “But I already have a dad… He was mean.”
“He shouldn’t’ve been,” Shouta growled, unable to hide his resentment toward Izuku’s sperm donor.
“Shou’s right, baby,” Hizashi said, much more gently, because he’s just better at this stuff. “Dads shouldn’t be mean to their kids. No parents should be. They’re supposed to love you and protect you. Your father didn’t do a very good job at that, but we’d do our best every day and make sure you feel safe and happy.”
When Izuku hesitated, Shouta, surprised at his own need to contribute, decided to add, “Kid, to put it simply, we love you, and we want you to be our son, but that’s gotta be your decision. Are you happy here with us? Do you feel safe? Do you like it here?”
Nodding, Izuku reached for Hizashi’s hands. “Yeah! You’re so nice to me, and I’m really happy! I can stay here?”
“Of course, you can!”
“I wanna stay,” Izuku said decisively. “You’re my new dads?”
Shouta nudged his shoulder against him affectionately. “If you wanna call us that.”
“You said that dads make kids feel safe and happy. You make me feel safe and happy, so you’re my dads. But what do I call my other dad?”
“Bastard.”
“No! Do not say that word, Izuku, oh my god.”
And Shouta grinned alongside his family.
Izuku settled into their life so cleanly, Shouta was amazed that he hadn’t been there from the start. They decided to legally keep the ‘Midoriya’ surname for the time being, since Hizashi was technically correct that it was the most logical and safe course of action, but they couldn’t be blamed for introducing him as Aizawa or Yamada Izuku to their trusted friends—and Shouta would absolutely be legally changing his name to Aizawa once All for One was dealt with, and Hizashi could fight him on that.
The paperwork was eventually dealt with, and Shouta was sure to keep Izuku’s details as vague as possible, particularly when describing his Quirk. They only told Tsukauchi, and likely All Might by extension, the truth of it. According to the registry, Borrow was nothing more than an interesting mix of a Copy and Erasure Quirk, which was sufficiently accurate even if it left some details out. Shouta even asked Nezu—"‘Our principal?!’ ‘He hasn’t been our principal in years, Zashi.’”—to add his own security measures to Izuku’s files. If it meant keeping his kid safe, he’d gladly owe the rat a favor.
Unfortunately, the favor happened to be him meeting Izuku which could lead to nothing good. Shouta knew his kid had potential, and Nezu would logically see that and undoubtedly take him on as a personal student. From there, who knew what trouble the two of them could get into together? So Shouta told Nezu he would have to wait until Izuku was a little older, when he had a better sense of his own autonomy. Hopefully, by then Izuku’s own common sense could curb Nezu’s scarier tendencies.
Other than that sense of impending doom, their lives settled into relative normalcy. During the day, Hizashi went to work—either the station, patrols, or both—and Shouta stayed with Izuku. They trained his Quirk in the mornings, since that was when Izuku had the most energy, and homeschooled in the afternoons. Despite his clear hesitance to ‘steal’ Quirks, even for the purpose of training, Shouta’s constant reassurances slowly allowed Izuku to trust himself and, by extension, his Quirk. He grew more comfortable with his abilities, increasing the time he could hold a Quirk after contact and even managing to hold both Hizashi’s and Shouta’s Quirks at once and use them simultaneously. Shouta was disgustingly proud of him.
In the evenings when Hizashi returned from work, they ate dinner, and then Shouta patrolled from the late evening until the early morning. Over time, their fridge became covered with Izuku’s drawings and, once he learned, his writing, until they migrated into a constantly expanding collection of notebooks. Even then, his first drawings of Present Mic and Eraserhead were never removed from the fridge.
It was all sickeningly domestic, and Shouta loved every second of it.
All for One was defeated when Izuku was nine. When Tsukauchi delivered the news—with no additional details—the small family celebrated with ice cream and another, final legal name change.
After heavy debate—which involved Hizashi threatening to sing pre-Quirk era pop songs to Shouta every night if Izuku’s name wasn’t changed to Yamada, and Shouta promising to delete the recordings of Hizashi’s favorite reality show if it wasn’t changed to Aizawa—Izuku had interrupted by sliding the paperwork, already completed by a shaky hand, between them.
In the space of ‘Family Name,’ he had combined the first kanji of both of his dads’ names: Aiyama.
And when he looked at them from across the table—the two men he had decided were worthy to be called ‘dad’ when the last holder of that title had done nothing but hurt him, who he childishly distinguished between as Shou-Dad and Zashi-Dad because he thought neither of them were more deserving of the title than the other, whose sign names of ‘Coffee’ and ‘Loud’ he combined with the sign for father every time he used them…
When he looked at them and said he wanted a piece of both of them in his last name?
Well, they couldn’t deny him that.
That night, Aizawa Shouta, Yamada Hizashi, and Aiyama Izuku curled together on the couch, Izuku snuggled firmly between his dads, and watched movies. It was something they had done a thousand times before in the three years of being a family, but tonight there was an undeniable sense of peace settled deep in their bones. Izuku’s biological father, who had snapped his fingers and crushed his heart with his own hands, whose torture lingered in Izuku’s mannerisms when he slept with his vulnerable hands tucked to his chest, when his stiff fingers ached on bad days, when he silently panicked every time he woke up in a dark room… That man had been defeated. Izuku was safe, and his dads—his dads—could finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing their son—their son—was safe.
That effervescent feeling of security lasted for the next few days as their movie night extended into a week-long movie marathon. The only interruption to their quiet celebration came at the end of that week, the day before Hizashi and Shouta would return to work, by the sharp ping of Shouta’s phone, the one reserved solely for hero work. Heart heavy before even glancing at the screen, he knew whatever he read on there would threaten the tranquil bubble he and his family had existed in since All for One’s defeat.
As always, he was correct.
ALL MIGHT to ERASERHEAD
>Tsukauchi says you have
taken responsibility for All
for One’s child.
TSUKAUCHI NAOMASA to ERASERHEAD
>I’m sorry. He wouldn’t rest until
he knew AFO’s successor
would not be an issue.
ERASERHEAD to ALL MIGHT
>We have adopted Izuku, yes
ALL MIGHT to ERASERHEAD
>Keep an eye on him
>A Quirk like that is a
dangerous weapon. Who
knows what All for One’s
child might do with it if
proper measures are not
taken.
ERASERHEAD to ALL MIGHT
>He is not All for One’s. He
is mine.
>Any Quirk is dangerous
without proper training. We
will not treat our son any
differently, and neither will
you.
>Thank you for dealing with
All for One. Now, stay away
from our son.
All Might never replied, but Shouta was done with the conversation anyway. Objectively, he understood All Might’s trepidations. All for One had killed many people, some of which were personal connections of All Might’s. But Izuku was not his biological father. He was too good to ever be that, with his Hero Analysis for the Future notebooks, and the goofy doodles he left on the kitchen counter for his dads to find after patrol, and the painstakingly written ‘Aiyama’ on the paper taped to the fridge. There was no doubt in Shouta’s mind that Izuku would grow up to be a spectacular hero rather than the villain he was once groomed to be.
Pulling his son close, Shouta knew it was only a matter of time before everyone else realized it too.