1 - Oboro (Tenko)
Bringing home strays was something that was expected of Oboro and his partners. All three of them were heroes, after all, each of them had a savior complex a mile wide that never really turned off. It was part of why all three of them had gone beyond just being heroes and had gotten their teaching licenses; it was also why the neighborhood shelters knew them by name as any cats found that they couldn’t keep ended up there.
The only thing was normally the strays they brought home were animals, cats mostly, and this time Oboro Shirakumo was walking through the front door half in his hero costume with a child wrapped in his jacket perched on his hip.
Bless Shouta and Hizashi neither of them blinked before they were in motion, grabbing blankets, clothes, and the first aid kit to help get the child as comfortable as possible. Oboro had never been more in love with them, and he had married them both.
“Hey Tenko, Buddy. Remember how I told you about my partners?” Oboro’s voice was as soft as the clouds he controlled as he spoke to the terrified child, humming when the little boy nodded against his shoulder. “I know it’s all really scary right now, but they’re both heroes too so they are here to help you.”
“Father doesn’t like heroes.” The little voice was hoarse and painful sounding, like the kid had been screaming for hours. Hizashi was already walking to the kitchen before Oboro could even glance at them. Once they returned with the glass of water, Tenko reached a little hand out to it before freezing and curling his fingers into a fist.
Oboro could have sobbed.
“Tenko, is it?” Shouta asked, crouching a little so his dark gaze could meet the kid’s red one. “Did Loud Cloud tell you my hero name?”
There was a pause as the kid considered the question before he shook his head no.
“My name is Eraserhead and my quirk is Erasure. As long as I’m looking at you your quirk won’t activate, I’ll even make sure to warn you before I blink while we get you used to your quirk.”
Red eyes went wide before one of those hands clamped over scarred lips to muffle the sob that tore through the little body. “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Over and over again rambled out as the kid sobbed through the growing panic.
Hizashi stepped closer to carefully rest a hand on the boy’s back just above Oboro’s arm and rubbed, humming with a touch of quirk that made their chest rumble like a purring cat. It took a few minutes for the poor kid to cry himself out, but soon his red eyes were locked on red and green. Hizashi smiled sadly.
“I was born with my quirk, so when I cried for the first time I deafened my mother, the doctor, and five nurses before someone put a quirk suppression cuff on me. By the time I was your age I had also mostly deafened my father and older sister along with myself. Trust me when I say that I understand destructive quirks and how they can hurt the people around you without you wanting it to. We’ll figure something out for you, bud, but until you can trust yourself we don’t mind helping you out a little more, yeah?” Even as he spoke Shouta was walking back to the kitchen, making sure to never fully leave Tenko’s eyesite, and was returning with one of the many straws they had thanks to Hizashi’s insistence that plastic was evil. He put it in the cup and offered Tenko a drink again, this time keeping the cup in his hand.
Tenko looked between the three of them for a long time like he was expecting them to disappear (which considering how Oboro found him probably was a legitimate fear the boy had) before carefully leaning forward to take a sip of water. All three pro’s smiled. It would be a long road and there would be many stumbles and tears while they figured out what would and wouldn’t work for the boy, but they would be there every step of the way to help Tenko however he needed.
(It was worth it, in the next year or so, to see a giggling little boy perched on Hizashi’s shoulders with little gloves hands raised high in the air as he batted at one of Oboro’s clouds. It was worth it to see a blue blue running around the house with Trash playing heroes. It was worth it when they hunted down a grouchy old underground with the help of Nezu who came with pictures and stories of a woman who loved her family and would have adored her grandson. It was worth it the first time Tenko reached for Oboro’s hand without fear, almost like he didn’t realize at all what he had done until they were already walking down the street swinging their arms. It was worth it to hear giggling and little footsteps pounding down the hall as Hizashi called after them not to run in the house, to hear a delighted squeal and Shouta’s rumbling laugh as he mock lectured about situational awareness, to hear a laughing voice call out for papa to save him from the tickle monsters.)
2 - Shouta (Hitoshi)
Shouta had always hated cases involving kids even before he became a father, adding Tanko to the mix only made him dread what he would find in the padlocked closet of the quiet family home even more.
It was just a simple domestic call, and Shouta had been the closest. He almost hadn’t heard the whimper from the closet.
(A flash of a demolished backyard and a once sleek and stylish house. A shattered picture of a little boy with black hair that had long since bled white from the stress. A voice that had called so many times for help and only received it far too late.)
He hated cases with kids, but he would be damned if he left this one to suffer like his son had. Like he had.
The lock clicked open with a few deft movements of his lock picks, and soon he was pulling the door open to reveal an empty closet. He frowned in confusion. He swore he had heard—.
A shuffle made him look down, there was a hollow in the wall where part of the siding had been pulled away to reveal a small hole. Too small for an adult. He was falling to his knees in a second and pushing up his goggles to meet terrified violet eyes over the rusted metal muzzle biting into the kid’s cheeks.
Shouta wanted to scream. He wanted to turn and beat the foster parents that had promised him there would be nothing to find until they were black and blue and bleeding to match the too small kid hiding from him. He wanted to rip this too-normal house apart brick by brick with his bare hands until it was as ugly outside as the things it hid within.
But the kid was more important.
“Hey, kiddo. My name is Eraserhead.” Those violet eyes widened and greasy purple hair bobbed violently as the kid nearly gave themself whiplash looking up at him. A mental quirk then based on the weightlessness to the hair. Something voice activated more than likely.
He almost missed those little hands signing to him in the dim light.
‘Villain quirk too?’
As a hero Shouta knew he couldn’t act on the wave of pure murderous intent that flooded him in that second making his vision bleed red and his hair lift as his quirk activated, but there was nothing he wanted more than to make those villains hurt like they had hurt this child. (And how the familiarity stung. A storage closet, a blindfold, being called a villain and told to never look at anyone and to just be a good little girl. No one had come for Shouta. He would be damned if he left this kid behind like he was.)
“Not a villain, kid. Anyone who thinks a quirk is what makes a villain they’re stupid and a bigot.” There was a flash of something in those eyes. Hope. “My family called me a villain too. One of my partners was muzzled because of their quirk. The other one almost died when we were in school when his supposedly weak quirk stopped a building from falling on a group of kids. Our son has a destructive quirk that he’s just starting to get a hang of. If there’s anyone who gets what it’s like it’s us.”
The kid blinked at him. Shouta blinked back, slow and warm like it was to one of the cats. The kid edged a little closer.
“We have an extra room if you want it. Tenko has been asking for a little sibling anyway.” He offered, holding his hand out to the kid.
It could have been seconds or hours, but eventually the kid crawled from their spot in the wall and placed their hand in his.
____
“Sho?”
“Yes?” Shouta answered with a raised eyebrow as he lifted his mug to take a sip of his third coffee of the day.
“There’s a child on our couch.” Oboro went as far as to point at the child who was snoring softly from his spot covered in Tenko’s Mario blanket with Luigi loafed on his chest purring. Trash was perched by his head, batting gently at lavender locks as the moved with each breath.
“I know. I put him there.”
Oboro made a sound not dissimilar to that of a deflating balloon, and turned to look wistfully at the cabinet they kept the alcohol in. Honestly that had to be a new record for Shouta. Normally he had at least a full pot of coffee before he broke one of his spouses.
“Shouta Aizawa, one half of my heart and my dear beloved husband, did you kidnap a whole child and bring him here without the slightest bit of warning?”
“I believe there’s a saying about a pot and a kettle that would fit this situation, Boro.”
“Shouta!” Wisps of cloud were starting to gather around Oboro’s head as he got more and more frustrated. Shouta would have felt a little more bad if this wasn’t: A) the same thing Oboro had done to them with Tenko and B) his husband didn’t look damn cute as he stomped his foot and crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“I found him in the closet of his foster home. They muzzled him, Boro. He asked me if I was a villain like him.”
Shouta could see the exact moment Oboro’s heart broke for the kid, as his husband staggered back like he had been hit. Shouta’s mug was quickly abandoned in favor of gripping his husband’s forearms as he dropped to his knees. They knelt on the kitchen floor, clinging to each other for several long moments before Oboro finally looked up from the ground with tears spilling down his cheeks.
“Okay. Call Tsukauchi and tell him to swing by with the emergency foster paperwork. I will get started on the guest room. When Zashi comes home we can talk more about next steps.” One of the things Shouta loved most about his husband was that he never hesitated. Once he saw someone that needed help he was going to help them.
They would figure it out. They always did.
___
3 - Hizashi (Izuku)
Around two years after they had adopted Hitoshi, Tenko had asked when Hizashi was planning on continuing the pattern of bringing home a kid. They had merely laughed it off at the time, stating that two was definitely enough for now and there was no way they were bringing home another stray.
Hitoshi and Shouta would laugh at them, they just knew it. Tenko would definitely say “I told you so.”
It wasn’t like they had started their day planning to semi legally kidnap a child, honest. All they had wanted was a warm tea from the coffee shop down the road from their agency before starting their show, but they had gotten a little sidetracked.
Getting nearly tackled by a sobbing child tended to do that really.
Hizashi was only glad they caught sight of the child before the collision, so they could catch the poor thing before they fell. The kid looked beaten to hell and more than a little singed, which would have been enough cause for alarm but the way that they glanced over their shoulder and paled was enough to make Hizashi scowl over their head at the white haired man approaching.
“I see you found my daughter. Izumi you know you aren’t supposed to bother heroes.” The kid flinched at the name and little fingers curled into Hizashi’s leather jacket so tightly their knuckles were bone white. Even the most inept of heroes would be able to see that something was painfully wrong with the little family, and Hizashi prided themself on being a damn good hero.
Not taking their eyes off the man, they shifted the kid onto their hip and stood. (They were little. So painfully little. It reminded them of Hitoshi when they first got him, all skin and bone and sunken desperate eyes.) Reaching into their back pocket they flipped out their license and raised an eyebrow at the man.
“The kid doesn’t look like they want to come back with you, sir.” For as pleasant as the words sounded, their red and green eyes were nearly spitting fire as they flared at the man. Fire they could see reflected as the man clicked his tongue and sparks gathered around his mouth. Not enough for Hizashi to charge him with public quirk use (a quirk like that would be active all the time and there would be quite a lot of build up if he didn’t spark up every so often) but enough to make them painfully aware of the burns on the kid’s hands and arms.
“Mr. Present Mic—“
Hizashi cut the man off with a razor sharp smirk. “It’s Mx. actually. Or Pro Hero Present Mic if you’re feeling particularly formal.” The kid tensed for a second in their arms before watery green eyes looked up at them in wonder.
“Mx. Present Mic,” the man ground out like he was swallowing glass, “this is all just a misunderstanding. Izumi is an emotional girl, and I upset her during our lesson. Really it is nothing a pro hero needs to waste their time with, nor are they wanted in family matters like this.”
The kid shivered in their arms and pressed closer as if trying to get away from the man. Hizashi took a step back, almost wishing they had left their hair down if only to give the kid something better to hide in rather than just their high collar. A little tug at their jacket made them look down just in time to see the kid’s jacket sleeve (and the fact that the kid was wearing sleeves at all in the middle of summer) shift down enough to show a hand print shaped bruise around their little wrist. Probable cause to take them to the station while not obvious enough for their father to notice if Hizashi didn’t.
What a brave little genius.
“If this is just a misunderstanding, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind heading to the station with me. I have to make sure all my paperwork is properly sorted after all.” Hizashi flashed their bright, blinding smile and tipped their head a little in the way that made people think they were just an airhead whose only defense was their quirk. They hadn’t graduated top of their class for nothing.
____
Later, curled up on Tsukauchi’s too small couch with the kid still plastered to their front after making their statement that was enough to give Hizashi nightmares, they knew that they had found the last missing piece to their little family. They knew from the second they gave their name as Izumi Midoriya and it pinged as a lie. They knew from the second the kid had whispered that their parents insisted they were a girl even though it never felt right.
They knew the second Izuku Midoriya had introduced themself as Mx. Midoriya with a quick glance at Hizashi’s face.
It took a heartbreakingly long time to convince Izuku that yes Hizashi wanted to foster them even though they were quirkless, and that quirk or no there was nothing bad or broken about Izuku no matter what their parents said. It took talking about their own life and their spouses. It took telling them about little Tenko who had been a late bloomer and Hitoshi who had been labeled a villain. It took several hours and a whole box of tissues between them, but eventually they were ready to give it a try.
(If Hizashi left out the fact that their spouses were also pro heroes and apparently two of their new kid’s favorite heroes then it was only because they wanted to see the awe on the kid’s face before they started rambling. If said rambling included some of the best analysis they had ever heard for any of their quirks, then it was only so their husbands could see how much of a genius their kid was too. If they cried when both Tenko and Hitoshi assured Izuku that they could be a hero with or without a quirk and Izuku told them that they thought both of their quirks would be great for heroics as well, then it was only because they loved their kids and was grateful they all got along so well.)
None of them had set out with the plan to adopt/possibly kidnap a child when they went out, but none of them would ever regret the family that they had gained.
