Archive of Our Own ^beta

Izuku was watching an All-Might movie with his mother. This one did not have All-Might playing himself, most movies didn’t, but this was his favourite one. Fukui Katsuro Played All-Might, He was the actor that Izuku loved, Izuku had always wanted to be an actor like Fukui, but since his quirk had come in those dreams were quickly out of the window. With his cat quirk, he lost the ability to talk like a human.

Luckily he could write, he was always working on his writing skills, so maybe if he couldn’t be an actor, he could be a movie writer! And maybe then, THE Fukui Katsuro might one day play in one of HIS movies! That would be a dream come true for Izuku. So like he usually did, while watching the movie, he wrote down his own movie ideas, also getting inspired from scenes in the movie he was watching.

Izuku tapped his mother on her shoulder and turned his note book to face her with the inside of it once she turned her head towards him away from her laptop that she was working on. Izuku had forced her to sit beside him on the couch because he didn’t like watching movies alone, and his mother had complied very easily with a loving smile. She had taken her laptop and the appurtenant charger and plugged it into the socket behind the couch before turning on the movie her four year old son wanted to watch.

“Ohh, did you write something again?” Izuku nodded with a beaming smile. Inko set her laptop beside her on the armrest, and took Izuku’s notebook out of his little hands and placed it onto her lap, once the book was out of his hands Izuku darted to the tv remote to pause the playing movie, it was just a few minutes until his favourite part was about to begin and he didn’t want to miss it, before scooting in close to his mother and leaning on her arm while she read his movie idea.

“What made Mehrida evil?” She asked him, Mehrida was the villain who wanted to brutally slaughter the hero, Ohdu, who saved children. Izuku grabbed his communication-book and wrote to his mom ‘she a killer’ and showed it to her. “Did something happen to make her want to kill Ohdu?” Izuku thought for a while before taking back his book and writing what he had come up with, ‘Ohdu saved the children from a sunken ship before the adults, and her whole family died because they were on family holliday’ Inko read the story again before turning back to Izuku, “It’s beautiful ‘zuku, I would love to watch this movie one day.” Izuku went to turn the tv back on but before he could, the tv autoswitched to the breaking news.

Izuku groaned, though it came out more of a crying cat sound. Curse his cat vocals. Inko stopped midway grabbing her laptop, watching the breaking news. It wasn't everyday that it autoswitched, that meant it was in, or at least close to, your area. and she was right, there was a destructive, dangerous villain fight happening just a few streets down and coming their way. The news warned people not to go outside or try to leave if they were close to the area, because already tens of people had died, more tens had been fatally injured, and hundreds of people had been sent flying into the walls of surrounding buildings.

How did they not notice this before? How had they not heard the commotion from just a few streets back? Inko wanted to run, she wanted to take Izuku to a place where she’d could be more sure of his safety. She already lost the ability to hear her sons cute voice, it wouldn’t be too many years from now that she would rely on an old recording to remember what he had once sounded like, how talkative he once was, how much he always wanted to tell her about his day at school, about the movies he was writing, how he could maybe one day play in his own movie as a hero, maybe be an actual hero one day.

Inko knew that that was what Izuku truly wanted, to be a hero, but when she told him it would be too dangerous, he told her he could always be a movie hero. He would do it for her. to twist his dream in such a way that it would be safer. She had to make sure Izuku was okay.

Not just because it was her job, her duty as mother. Not just because that’s the right thing to do. Not just because she wanted to. But also because she knew, had they been tens of years further, had she been a helpless old lady, and had Izuku had to take care of her, she knew with all her heart that Izuku would want to do the same. She knew Izuku would do everything in his power to protect his mother.

Inko came back to reality when she felt her son cuddle in close to her. She looked over to him and saw his wide eyes staring at the television screen. tears already streaming down his face, and more waiting to fall. Inko looked up at the screen and saw that the fight had moved. It was now in the street opposite to them, she could see their window on the tv. She looked outside through the window and she could see the fight happening. She looked back to Izuku as she felt him shift slightly, The four year old's wide teary eyes stared at her in fear, begging her to hold on to him. And she did.

Not just that, she picked him up and cradled him close as she stood up, slipped into her slippers, and ran as fast as she could down the stairs. Always making sure she still had a tight grip on her son. They had to leave, Izuku had to leave. He had to be saved. With the attack sneaking closer, he was far from it at the safety of their own home, so they had to go. She couldn’t just do nothing and hope for the best. She couldn’t deal with the feeling she could only hope her son would survive.

While running down the stairs, she stopped somewhere halfway to take in what was all actually happening around her. The fight outside had been getting louder and louder while she was running. and she wasn’t the only one trying to flee. There were so many more people, more parents, more kids, there were pregnant women, there were newborn babies, there were teenagers, there were people that had only just bought their first apartment who hadn’t even had the time to unpack everything.

Inko pulled out her phone, saying sweet words to Izuku, trying to calm him down. She opened the news app and froze as she watched the fight now taking place right outside the only exit of their building. She was too late. With this newfound knowledge Inko decided to turn right back around and run back to their apartment, their home, their comfort zone. It would be better there where it’s quiet and calm, than in the hallway they were in now where everyone was panicking, screaming, crying. crying. Izuku was crying. She stopped in her tracks and instead opted to sit down on the stair of the building.

She put Izuku down on her lap and looked him in the eyes. His eyes were red and swollen from the tears he’d been crying. Inko’s expression changed to something softer and she spoke to her son to make him feel better. “Hey ‘zuku, don’t forget that the heroes are here too, okay? They will make sure you’re okay.” Izuku shot himself out of his mothers grip, holding him at distance so she could talk to him, and pulled himself closer to his mom to hug her tightly. Much to his pleasure, his mom hugged him back just as tightly as she kept talking. “I love you so much Izuku, don’t ever forget that okay? You’ll have to make it through to the end like I know you can.”

‘I love you too mom’ Izuku wanted to say to her. ‘You won’t leave right?’ he wants to ask her. ‘I want to be with you forever mommy’ he wants to tell her. But he can't. He can’t say that to her, he can’t ask her that, and he can’t tell her that. Izuku knew that his mother already knew those things, she knew he loved her, and she knew he didn’t want to lose her. And she didn’t want to lose him either. Izuku couldn’t do anything but hug and kiss and ‘meow’ to tell his mother he loved her too.

Inko held Izuku at a distance on her lap again and told him she loved him again. Before having him stand on the ground in front of the stair she was sitting on. Izuku took a few steps backwards, careful as to not bump into anyone, as he watched his mother get up and sink into a squad in front of him. “You are an exceptional boy, Izuku, Keep d-”.

A loud BANG scared Izuku into shifting into cat form, and was all the warning there was before not even a second later Izuku watched his mother be crushed by falling debris right in front of him. The debris crumbled over his mothers back as she was still moving. Still fighting to get back up. Izuku hurried to try and dig his mother up from under the debris. It wasn’t easy to push debris with his cat paws. In his head he was screaming at himself. ‘Change back, change back, change back!!’ But he couldn’t, the fear inside of him was keeping him from using his quirk to change back. ‘Please change back! I don’t wanna be a cat, I wanna be a boy! Change back!!’

Even though he couldn’t bring himself to shift back to his true self, he kept digging, and digging, and digging, and digging. His paws hurt. but he kept digging. He could see his mother moving beneath the crumbled up concrete so he knew he had to keep going. Then he saw her head. She looked at him with a small, light, loving smile. Inko knew her son would have to make it without her. Izuku didn’t stop meowing, trying to talk to her. Inko’s hand moved out of the debris on top of her, that she was still stuck in, then started to pet the black, fluffy, curly haired cat that she knew for a fact was her little son. Her little son, who would have to make it on his own after today.

Inko heard Izuku’s painful, hurt meows. Even though she couldn’t understand the words, she knew what he was saying. “Please don’t go mommy, I need you, I love you so much mommy, please, please don’t leave me,” She heard his words through his own little voice, even though she knew that it wasn’t what was truly coming out of Izuku’s little kitten mouth. She could hear the villain attack calming down, they must’ve apprehended the villain. It was practically over, and Izuku was safe, he was alive and miraculously uninjured. He was still speaking to her when she cut him off. She knew she had to finish what she started to say, yet she could feel her consciousness slipping away.

“Hey, ‘zuku. Keep dreaming. I know you can make it come true,” she started. She felt that her throat was dry, her words coming out like whispers. Izuku, being the little angel that he is, gave her little headbutts, the closest thing to hugging that he could do as a cat. “Stay strong ‘zuku. Stay…” Inko felt herself slipping, almost unable to speak anymore, her head dropped to the ground as she was unable to keep it up any longer. Still she pushed herself to finish what she wanted to say, she wanted to say so much more to her beloved toddler, but this was all she could muster to do before she slipped away entirely. “Stay strong for me.”

Izuku watched as his mom’s head fell to the floor, heard her soft spoken words, then watched the debris fall as Inko’s body went limp. The kitten boy let out a small ‘meow’ as he softly pawed at his mothers head. Izuku walked closer to his mother, he lifted her head up with his own head, he nestled himself under her chin and cried in grief. It was only then that he heard the silence. The yelling, screaming, running, stomping, talking, fighting, it had all stopped and he hadn't even noticed. It had just been him and his mother to him. For a moment that was all that mattered.

Izuku fell into a light sleep nestled under his mom’s chin, but was startled awake when he felt her being moved off of him. He looked up at the man that had taken his mother, and the man stared back for a moment before yelling “There’s a cat here! What do I do with it?” Izuku panicked, this man was going to take his mom and leave. He heard another voice in the distance, “Focus on the people, the animals are not our concern according to the written command!” Izuku couldn’t let this man leave with his just mom, and not them both. He was a boy not a cat! Well technically he looked like a cat. but it was his quirk! His stupid, stupid good for nothing quirk!

Izuku set his claws in the man's jeans, hoping the man would just take Izuku with him while he was hanging on his leg, but instead the man shook the kitten off, “I’m sorry little guy, you’ll have to make it on your own. I’m not allowed to take you with me.” Izuku meowed at the man who took his mother away from him. He looked over to where he was heading and saw a bunch of people and those yellow hospital buses. He tried to walk over but with his third step his paw got stuck in a hole that the rubble had made. Izuku meowed and cried for someone to help him, and for so long nobody came. They weren’t allowed to help him. He was nothing more than just another stray animal to them.

That was until he heard a voice behind him, “Oh you poor thing, stuck in the rubble are you little one? Come, let me help you.” Izuku looked behind him and saw a man there, wearing all black with a short shaved beard, yellow goggles resting on his head and he had dark black tired, but loving eyes. He picked Izuku up and brought him to the other people where Izuku had tried to get to. “What are you doing? Focus on the people Eraser! What did I just say?!” A familiar voice came from next to him, it was the man that said they shouldn’t care about the animals. He was yelling at the man that had saved him, Eraser, but he was already back in the rubble looking for more bodies. Izuku thought the man who didn’t want them to save animals, wasn’t an animal lover, but still the man picked him up and started petting him.

“I’m sorry little one, you’ll be alright on your own, yeah? We have to do our jobs, but Eraser always gets distracted by cats.” The man chuckled as he hugged the kitten closer, “It’s not that I don't like animals, but our mission tells us to ignore any and all animals we might find. We should be focused on the people.” Izuku meowed, trying to tell the man that he is a person, still trying to make himself turn back, but the business of the street, and constant worry about his mother made him unable to.

The man cuddled Izuku until the day was over and everyone had to leave. The man and Eraser stayed with him a bit longer, Izuku laying comfortably on Eraser's lap. When the two men left however, Eraser gave him a slice of ham. He didn’t put it down on the ground, instead he held it pinched between two fingers and fed it to Izuku. As they walked away Izuku followed them, he didn’t want them to leave him too. He didn’t like being alone. He listened to the men talk while he walked behind them. “Did everyone end up accounted for?” Eraser asked the man. “Sadly, no. We're missing three adults and a toddler. I’m gonna look into which apartments they belonged to for the last few hours of my shift and continue searching in those places tomorrow.” The other man explained.

“A toddler huh. Poor thing, you sure we can’t check once you’re done with the research?”
“I know you want to find that child, I do too, but everyone needs to rest. Even you, ya dingus.”
“But we can’t leave a child that is possibly still alive to stay in the rubble for, who knows how long, now can we?”
“It’s not ideal, no, but we don’t have any other choice.”
“Ugh fine. Make sure you research the people’s quirks too, it could possibly help us find a lead.”
“Will do. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah, c’ya.”

And Eraser went… flying? with his scarf? “Hey,” The other man said, Izuku looked towards him and saw that he was looking at him. “Did you follow us all the way here?” Izuku started clawing at the man's trousers, trying to sign that Izuku doesn’t want the man to leave him alone. “You’re so cute you know, but I can’t take you with me.” He said as he picked Izuku up. The man walked into an alley with the kitten and put him down near a big container. “Here you go curly.” Curly? Really? How creative… “Stay here okay? Shou and I will check up on you from time to time okay? I’ll come back tomorrow Curly.” The man said before he walked off into the night.

Izuku stared at the entrance of the alley for quite some time before coming back to his senses. It was dark, and cold. And- when had he changed back into himself? Izuku sat in a crosslegged position as he looked at his hands. They were the same as he remembered. So were his clothes, his grippy socks, the feel of his hair, the freckles littering his skin, and the height he saw everything at. Everything was the same, and yet he felt different. He felt smaller. He felt alone. He was alone. He was tired. Izuku shifted back into cat form. His fluffy furry coat would keep him warmer than his t-shirt, shorts and grippy socks ever could.

He went to sleep in the cold dark alley that the man had left him in. but he didn’t dream, he had a nightmare. One that kept replaying his mom being crushed by the ceiling. He sees his paws digging through the debris, he keeps hearing her words, carried by the air, “Keep dreaming.” How can he when all he has is himself, the floor, and the nightmares. “Stay strong.” Was he ever strong? How could he be strong if he couldn’t even save his own mother, if he couldn’t even save himself? Then he felt her pet him. But it felt different. It felt more… real.

Izuku was scared awake by a hand touching his back. He hissed at the intruder of his personal space, but then calmed down when he saw that it was Eraser. He was in different black clothes, and without the big scarf, but he was still easily recognizable. Eraser tried to lure him, but he really didn’t need to, Izuku would've come to him either way. Eraser picked him up and cuddled with him for a bit before putting him back down. He reached into his bag and took out a bowl and a packet of milk.

Eraser set the bowl down on the ground and Izuku looked into it out of curiosity, but he was swiftly pushed away before the man poured milk in it. “Here you go little one, drink up.” He said, and Izuku obliged. The milk was good, he hadn’t had anything after lunch the day before, he wasn’t even sure what the time was now, how long had he gone without food? Izuku was still drinking his milk when Eraser pulled him into his lap as the man sat on top of the container.

Izuku meowed, saying he wasn’t done yet but then Eraser once again held a slice of ham pinched between two fingers and fed it to Izuku again. Izuku loved it. He wished he could’ve followed him the day before but the man was so fast, he was gone before the kid could blink. “You must be hungry, huh. Well I can’t stay long, I’m going to try and find the rest of the people that were in that collapsed building you came from.

Izuku wanted to show Eraser he was the kid they were looking for, he truly did. But for some reason every time he tried to shift when he or the other man were present, he physically couldn’t. He had thought of writing it down for the men but he didn’t have a pen or paper, and he didn’t assume that the two men would come with a pen and a piece of paper to the cat that they found in the hopes the animal could write.

The years went by like that, Izuku stayed in the alley and Eraser and the man, Tsukauchi he had learned throughout the years, would come everyday to feed him. Izuku didn’t know how many years had gone by, nor did he know how old he was now. He didn’t shift back to himself often, it was way too cold for that in the winter, and he ripped through his clothes last summer. Izuku had to get new clothes somewhere, somehow. But the only possibility he could think of was to steal them. It was getting warmer and warmer as the weeks went on and Izuku couldn’t stand the heat with his thick fur coat. So he knew he had to go through with the stealing, even though he hated the mere thought of it.

Izuku shifted into cat form and walked into the first clothing store he saw. He had to wait until someone walked in so he could follow them because he didn’t want to be seen. There was a black t-shirt on the rack just beside the door. Izuku’s heart went racing as he thought about what he was about to do, it went against everything he stood for, all of his morals. But his own shirt was torn straight through the middle and was now worn like a vest.

He took one deep breath. ‘Here we go..’. Izuku shifted back into a human and quickly threw the t-shirt on the ground before swiftly turning back into a cat, taking the bottom of the shirt in his mouth and sprinting back to the alley he stayed at. There he once again shifted into his boy-self and took off his shirt, which he then threw in the container that was still always there. Then he went back for the trousers.

This time he had to go further into the store, and while running back to the front door, he got caught. Izuku wriggled, trying to get himself out of this woman’s grasp but couldn’t. He dropped the trousers and shifted. The woman that was holding him up in one hand lost her grip and dropped him to the floor. While falling Izuku shifted back. Izuku took the fall in stride and once again bit hold of the trousers before running out of the doors faster than he had ever ran before. He didn’t try out his luck to go back for socks.

Despite now being an actual criminal, Izuku still wanted to save people. But his mom didn’t want him to do herowork. Although, couldn’t he at least try?

And so when villain fights would be active Izuku would take the present kids as far away as he could. This went on for even more years, and everything always ended the way it should. Without any casualties. And he was never even spotted by the adults, so with only kids' descriptions of him, they didn’t have any average lead on who he might be. The kids only said that he was, ‘Fluffy!’, ‘So soft!’, ‘Cute!’, ‘Black!’. And that makes up most of the cats in the area.

But one day he was spotted, and it was by none other than Eraser himself.

Izuku had followed the cries of a little kid to a big open street. There was a villain with a blood-magnet quirk. Eraser had been fighting the villain, but was just slammed into a wall. The villain quickly activated his quirk and pulled the little girl towards him. When Eraser looked up again to erase the quirk, he couldn’t. The villain had his head turned the other way and Eraser didn’t have the power to go against that strong of a quirk. So Izuku bit the Villain.

Upon being bit by a cat, the man weakened his grip and looked around to find the culprit. Feeling a weak spot in the quirk, Eraser turned his head and erased the villain's quirk once more. The little girl was falling, Izuku knew he could get there faster than Eraser could, so he bolted to her. He jumped up into the air, shifted into himself to grab the little girl and land safely on his feet, then he dragged her a good few meters away from the active fight. He shifted back into cat form and laid down on the girl's lap. Who was very pleased to be allowed to pet him.

The little girl kept talking to him, telling him all about her homelife. Her mother had left her father for another man and her mother was usually at work. She really wanted a cat, but could never ask her mom because of this. She told him how cute he was, how fluffy. Izuku never knew how he made this kid tell him so much about her. Most kids just hugged him and left as soon as possible. But because of the little girl's stories, Izuku hadn’t realized the fight was over, Eraser had been gone for a while already to hand over the villain, and had come back already. As if he knew the two would still be there.

“Hey, kid. Come on, I'll get you somewhere safe, okay?” Eraser told her. The little girl looked at Izuku as if to find comfort, as if he would tell her if she should or shouldn’t go. Izuku meowed in return and gave her little headbutts on her chin. She giggled and hugged Izuku tightly before moving the cat off of her lap and following Eraser. Izuku was just about to go back to his home, the alley, but before he could, he was picked up by Eraser and held firmly in his right arm, and holding the little girl's hand with his left. and so the three of them walked to the police station. There Eraser dropped off the girl to be picked up by her mother.

Izuku wasn’t sure why the man had picked him up. Could there be a chance Eraser had seen him shift? Izuku had thought the man would be too out of it at that moment for it to fully get through to him. Had he been wrong? Then again. Would that really be so bad? Since the beginning Izuku had tried to show him he wasn’t actually a cat, but back then he wasn’t able to. At some point in time, Izuku had just forgotten that this, his life like this, wasn’t normal, wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It could be so much more if he had just a little help.

Izuku came back to reality at the voice of Eraser. It didn’t register to him what the man had said, but Izuku looked around and saw the alley he had been staying in. He had been put down on the still ever present container, Eraser standing not too far away from him. It seems the man noticed that his words went unheard, because he spoke again, “Okay kid, I was you, so turn back for me.” Izuku wondered for a moment, should he do this? Then again, wasn’t this what he had wanted from the start? For them to know? So Izuku obliged, he turned back into himself.

Shouta was absolutely done with this, he was walking back to the alley with the cat he had saved from that collapsed building nine years ago, because he ‘thought’ he saw it change into a person while his vision was blurry and barely focused on anything else but the villain. Still he stayed adamant. “Okay kid, I saw you, so turn back for me.” He told the cat. The cat, he was talking to a cat. He did that often to his own cats, he had talked to this cat before, that wasn’t the weird thing about this, he was expecting an answer back from said cat. which didn’t do anything. He decided he could ask once more, and if it didn’t do anything then, then he would tell himself he had imagined it in the heat of the moment. But the cat shifted into a human form.

And oh goodness, Eraser immediately knew what he signed up for. They had known the kid from the collapsed building, the one they weren’t able to find, had a cat quirk, but they were told he had ample control over it and usually couldn't switch on command. So they had ruled out the option of looking for a cat. Which now, seemed like the stupidest thing they’ve ever done. This could’ve been handled so many years earlier had they just tried. The kid looked young for his age. Small. If he remembers correctly, the child was four when he went missing, so now he should be thirteen. though he looked around ten or eleven.

Shouta began asking the kid, still sitting on the container, some questions. Questions he most likely already knew the answers to. “What’s your name kid?” In turn the kid stared at him for a moment, before ever so slightly tilting his head to the right. Shouta waited for a few moments longer before deciding the kid probably didn’t want to tell him his name, possibly because he was anxious about this. But maybe he would be open to answering other questions. “Okay, if you’re not going to tell me your name, could you explain what you were doing out there? You do know vigilantism is illegal right?”

The boy looked at him, head tilting further to the right and his blank expression from before morphing into one of confusion. Shouta turned his voice of words over in his head, was there something he pronounced wrong? Did he say a sentence that didn’t quite roll well? But he couldn’t pinpoint the problem, until he realized that this kid most likely stopped learning new vocabulary at age four. Would a four year old know what vigilantism was? Would a four year old know that you needed a license to do hero work? That you didn’t just start when you wanted to and become a hero? Probably not.

But then again the kid still wasn’t speaking. At all. He wasn’t telling Shouta that didn’t know what he meant, wasn’t telling Shouta to word it differently, he wasn’t speaking at all. “Can you talk?” He asked the kid. In return the kid shook his head. He probably forgot to speak over the years of being silent, having no one to talk to. He unlearned something he was still learning. Averagely some sounds are only fully mastered at ages seven or eight, and actually understanding time sequences, ongoing conversations, and complex sentences at age five.

Shouta sighed, before he helped the kid get off of the container he never moved from. As the kid stood in front of him he crouched down to be on eye-level with him. “Can you write?” The kid smiled and nodded. Which caused a small smile to creep up Shouta’s own lips. “Good, follow me.” He told the kid, and he started walking to his house. He looked behind him to see the kid struggling to walk. He walked like a toddler, had he been inside of his cat body for so long he never developed walking skills either? This child had a ton of catching up to do.

He kept checking in on the kid walking behind him from time to time, one time he didn’t see the kid anymore, he stopped and looked around for him, then he felt something at his ankle, he looked down to find the kid in his cat body. It was probably an easier walk like that for the kid, so even though Eraser wanted him to keep going as a human to try and learn to walk normally like that, he let the kid have his peace with walking like a cat. And something in Shouta found it too cute to tell him to switch back.

Izuku walked with Eraser into an apartment, which he assumed was owned by Eraser himself. There were more cats there, three of them, but these were actual cats. They didn’t really like him when he walked into the room, because they all went behind a door and watched from there. Izuku sat in the door opening of the living room and watched as Eraser grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. The man sat down, and with that he made a movement with his hands to tell Izuku he should too.

Izuku sat down at the table, an actual table. Not a rock, or a park bench, or a halfly rotten picnic bench. No, this was a real dining table. Izuku hadn’t sat at an actual table for probably years, though he wasn’t sure how many. When he got out of his daydreaming state, he saw Eraser sitting at the other side of the table, the same spot he’d been in when he gestured Izuku to sit, But this time Izuku saw something different too. The paper and pen were in front of him now, and Eraser looked at him with a waiting expression.

Shouta waited for the boy to come back down to earth on his own terms, rather than snapping him out of it. In the meantime he opted for laying the piece of paper and the pen in front of the kid- cat? Shouta was having a mental crisis about what exactly to call him. But he now saw that ‘he’ was back to earth, so he started. “Allright, I will start from the beginning.” He said, and he saw that the kid, he will just call him ‘kid’ for while he is in human form, cocked his head to the side, possibly in interest, but even so you could never be sure of what’s going on in someone’s head. “Can you write down your name for me?” He asked.

He should know how to write his name, even at four years old, or perhaps he was still learning to write it. Shouta wasn’t sure how long the kid had been 4 before he stopped learning, he could’ve been close to five, or barely four, for all he knew. But the kid surprised him. The handwriting was exceptional for someone who hadn’t been properly taught since elementary. Of course the big and small letters were mixed in with each other, and the letters looked a bit wonky, but the kid looked proud of it, and it was surprisingly readable. Shouta had seen teenagers with worse handwriting. Focusing less on the lettering, and more on what was written, made Shouta’s heart drop. It was exactly what he had thought.

IZuKu

Now his memory of first names was not the best, but he was goodness sure that that was the name of the kid that they had been looking for nine years ago. But because of his memory, he couldn’t help but ask, “How about your last name?” The kid thought for a while, but still went to write down the answer, and what came back, doubly confirmed Shouta’s initial theory. It’s him.

MIDorIA

It was spelled wrong, but Shouta knew what he meant. “Do you mean,” He said as he took the pen and paper for himself for a bit. He wrote down the name he knew the case had. Midoriya. The kid looked up at him while he was writing, he hadn’t even noticed it until he looked up to meet the teens eyes. He slid the paper over to the kid, Midoriya, and turned it around for him to be able to read it. Midoriya lit up at the word, why? Shouta wasn’t sure. But Midoriya held his hand out, seemingly waiting for him to give back the pen. Shouta obliged, and once the pen was back in the kid’s hand, he started writing again.

I KnEw I SpELLED It wroNG

Shouta let out a soft chuckle as he read what Midoriya had written down. He had known he spelled it wrong but didn’t know how else to spell it. It made him wonder why he had spelled it the way he had. But he didn’t question it further, he had more important questions to ask first, maybe one day he would be able to ask him. “How old are you?” Even though he knew Midoriya was thirteen, the question was, did Midoriya know that he was thirteen?

no

The kid had no idea how many years had gone by, didn’t know how long the world had neglected him, how long he’d been utterly alone next to the visits Shouta and Tsukauchi paid him, not even his own age. Shouta took a deep breath before asking his main question. He had wanted to take the kitten he had saved home that first day, but he hadn’t. He wanted his husband to be okay with it first, mainly because they already had three cats. Hizashi had told him that there was probably some relative of his old owner looking for him, and if he wasn’t showing any sign of not being cared for, he could take him home.

But the kitten was always healthy, he always looked well groomed, well kept. The only thing Shouta did was give him food and milk whenever he saw him, every now and then he brought a tic brush, but he never had tics, neither as a kitten, nor as an adult cat. So Shouta assumed there was already someone doing that for him. Shouta took him to the vet once, asking if the kitten had been chipped, he hadn’t. And it all made so much sense now. The kid could take care of himself, even though he was definitely malnourished, he was decently clean for someone living on the street. He had no lice or tics, he didn’t reek (too much) of mud and sweat, and he didn’t have any uncared for wounds on his body. As if someone had been taking care of him while he was in human form. But now Shouta wasn’t so sure.

“Has anyone been taking care of you?” Shouta asked Midoriya. The kid cocked his head to the right again, a recurring trait that Shouta notices now, he also did as a cat. Always to the right too, never left. Shouta couldn’t help but give a light smile at that. The kid was still looking at him, he hadn’t written anything down yet and Shouta began thinking Midoriya hadn’t heard him. He opened his mouth to say something again, but Midoriya looked away, seemingly deep in thought.

Maybe he didn’t know how to write the name again. The man thought, and like that he started thinking of what the kid would write down as his final answer. Maybe it was his grandmother, or grandfather. And they let him play outside for as long as he’d like because that’s usually what cats do. Maybe an aunt or an uncle that are still trying to figure out how to care for a child. Maybe a family friend who can’t always be at home because of a busy job. Maybe a-. KNOCK KNOCK. Shouta looked up, it was the kid who had knocked on the table, he was done writing. Shouta held his tears at the revelation that the paper held.

You ErASEr

Nobody had been taking care of him, it had only been him. Probably Tsukauchi too and the kid didn’t know how to write his name, if he even knew his name at all. And Midoriya himself, to take care of him. He knew he had to take this up with the police now, he also knew his husband had to be onboard too. But to this kid Shouta had already been his new guardian ever since he had saved him, ever since the man had gotten him freed from the his paw was stuck in the rubble. But then there was another question. “Why didn’t you show yourself to us before?” Midoriya was writing for a while again.

I wAS StuCK AS A CAt

That explained all he needed to know. Now it was time to call Hizashi to inform him about a certain cat. And then Tsukauchi about that same ‘cat’. Time for the adoption process to start.

There were a lot of problems even after they had passed through the process. But during it there were also a lot of them. With Hizashi meeting Midoriya, the kid was sceptical to a degree that was almost concerning. After three days of Midoriya basically avoiding Hizashi, they decided to ask him what Hizashi had done wrong. They were not prepared for the daddy-issues that came with that question.

A father who left because his son had a so-called ‘weak quirk’ even though it’s the same quirk he had. Apparently Midoriya Hisashi had hoped his kid would get a combination of cat and telekinesis, or a telekinesis quirk that was stronger than his mothers’. The inability to talk was only the cherry of hatred on top of the disappointment cake.

Hizashi, blessed with his amazing ability to deal with kids, Hugged Midoriya close after he was done writing it down. His husband told the kid that he deserved better than that, and reassured him that he would always be there if Midoriya had any problems. He told Midoriya how he really cared for him, not just for his quirk, or for his dreams, of being a hero or film writer, or, with new input from Shouta himself praising the kid for his ability to analyse quirks at rapid speed, a quirk analyst. But the conversation didn’t stop there.

“I will always be here for you Midoriya, Even if you don’t want me to, I’ll always care about you.” Those were the words Hizashi uttered while holding Midoriya at arms length so he could look the kid in the eyes while he was saying them. Midoriya in turn, turned to the paper and pen that were still in front of him, the ones he had used to explain his past with his father. He took the pen and started writing.

IZuKu IS FInE

With that out of the way, they had the cats. All three of them didn’t seem to like Izuku very much. And most of the time, Izuku just ignored them. But apparently, that was the best decision Izuku could’ve made regarding the cats’ scepticism. It took only about two weeks for the cats to want to try to interact with Izuku, most likely realizing he wasn’t going to be leaving soon.

After the adoption process was done, and they had signed the adoption papers, Izuku was officially on paper as Izuku Aizawa-Yamada. They opted to use both last names so they could choose with one to use depending on the situation. Their last names weren’t too known to the public even though they are pro heroes, with Hizashi ranking within the top twenty. Shouta was underground so his last name would never be recognized by anyone else but pro heroes who have worked with him, or students he had taught at UA. So in public Izuku would usually go by Aizawa. But Izuku wanted to go to UA, in which case they decided, when it came to it, they would use Yamada, since Hizashi mainly just went as Present-Mic, or to students, Mic-sensei.

Shouta had taken Izuku to the hospital as well to take a look at his vocal cords, since Izuku was adamant he couldn’t speak, and neither of the men had heard a single sound come from his mouth. In the waiting room however, Izuku had asked why they were at the hospital. Shouta hadn’t wanted to tell the kid because he already knew Izuku would just tell him he wouldn’t be able to talk. Ever. Which he did. “They will just take a quick look at your vocal chords to see if you could still relearn talking.” The man explained. He looked over to Izuku, who looked back at him with an unimpressed expression, before blowing Shouta’s mind with his voice. “Meow”.

The test came back to tell them that Izuku wouldn’t be able to talk, because with his quirk came cat vocals. “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

I toLD You I CAnt tALK

“You didn’t tell me you could only talk like a cat, Izuku. Why?”

SCArED

Izuku appeared to be scared they wouldn’t want him, because he could only talk like a cat. Honestly he should’ve known. His biological father left him because of it, so that must’ve left some damage. But Shouta really hoped that this wouldn’t become a pattern. He reassured Izuku that he didn’t need to fear they would give up on him over anything. Told him he could always come to them if he’d need them. And that conversation ended with a happy understanding nod from Izuku.

Then came the physical therapy. Izuku had to learn to walk as a human. At first Shouta and Hizashi had tried to teach him on their own, but they very quickly realized they did NOT know how to explain to a thirteen year old how to walk. So a professional physical therapist it is. Izuku went there five days a week for two hours, Monday through Friday, and on weekends he was tasked to take a walk around the block as a human with the practice they had done. They started with a five minute walk, which was long enough for Izuku to start with, but they quickly moved on to ten minutes, then fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, fortyfive, and then an hour. They knew Izuku wouldn’t be able to ever really walk how he was supposed to, but to help that he got braces for his hips, knees, and ankles to help him.

Izuku really did want to learn everything he’d missed out on, and he was a quick learner. Shouta and Hizashi homeschooled him, and they were able to do it themselves in many subjects. They could do math, writing, English, but for Japanese they had to hire someone that specialized in teaching the language because for some parts of it, the two men had no idea how to explain it. Every now and then they would also get a math coach to test Izuku on what level of math he was, and every time he’d made great progress, they also hired a writing coach to help Izuku with how his hand should move while writing, but they only did that twice because Izuku seemed to have quite a bit of talent for writing.

Once he entered UA high school in mixed courses, Hero and gen ed, Izuku was still on his way to catching up, but one day Shouta is sure Izuku can make it.