Arriving home from work, Shouta dumped his bag down on the floor and closed the door behind him.
"And what time do you call this?" Hizashi's voice teased from the kitchen.
"Nezu wanted to talk to me about something." He explained. "Just boring teaching stuff, nothing earth shattering."
The erasure hero walked into the living room and quickly realised that he wasn't alone.
"Hi."
It was rare to see Hitoshi out of his room after everything that had happened and Shouta felt as if he hadn't talked to the kid in forever and not through lack of trying.
"Hey." The teen replied.
He took a seat on the sofa beside him.
"Ectoplasm picked up your mask during clean up from the final exam."
"Yeah I had to ditch it at one point, it just kept fritzing so I was scared it was gonna' electrocute me. I think it was when All Might threw me into the wall. I need to ask if there's any way it can be shockproof otherwise it's gonna' be useless."
"Well ninenty-nine percent of the villains you'll face when liscensed won't have even a fifth of All Might's power so I don't think you're gonna' have much to worry about there."
"True."
"I'm sorry your mask ended up getting ruined, you didn't have it for very long."
"It's okay, I'm sure if I beg Mei she'll make me a new one."
Shouta smirked.
"She doesn't exactly strike me as someone who would say no to more excuses to make equipment."
"Mei is so cool, the support course is amazing."
"Well, I've got something for you too actually."
Shouta reached down and held out the new capture weapon to Hitoshi.
"Is that?"
"If you don't have a physical quirk you need a second line of defence, capture weapons provide just that without weighing you down like support gear would."
Hitoshi took the scarf from him and Shouta could hear the almost giddy noises coming from the teen.
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
"You know, I made one of these out of toilet roll once back at the facility."
"Really?"
"Yeah, they said I was never going to be a hero." He paused. "They also said I'd never escape them so what the fuck do they know?"
Shouta smirked.
"Exactly."
He unravelled his own scarf and placed it in his lap. It wasn't hard to work out what had brought about the difference in Hitoshi's breathing a few seconds later.
The scars on his neck.
"Oh, sorry."
Shouta went to put it back on but Hitoshi's hand came to stop him from doing so.
"I'm the last person you need to hide scars from." The teen stated. "I've only seen you without it on a few times."
"I'm surprised you haven't said anything before."
"You don't ask about people's scars." Hitoshi answered softly.
"In my case I don't mind, it just worked out that the scarf hid them, they were on show back at school before I got my support gear."
"Was it your Dad?"
Shouta nodded.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
He took a breath.
"Well you know most of it, my Dad was a psycho, he killed a bunch of people and he's thankfully going to finally be dead very soon. But anyway, I got home from school and Mom was on the floor. I tried to get him away from her but ended up getting a knife across the throat and a hit to the head for the trouble."
Shouta reached for the teen's hand and held it reassuringly.
"His quirk was strange, it didn't cancel like mine, it activated whatever quirk you had but caused it to have the opposite effect. So when he activated my Mom's, her blood regeneration quirk reversed. I tried using my own on his but it just ended up cancelling out."
"Your quirks are nothing alike, why did everyone try to say they were?!" Hitoshi stated defensively. "That's bullshit!"
He smirked.
"People are scared of what they don't understand."
"I'm sorry your Dad was a prick."
"Well like I said he'll be dead soon so that's something to look forward to at least, we'll have a party to celebrate when it does happen."
He felt Hitoshi shuffle across the couch before the teen ducked under his arm and huddled in against his side.
"You doing okay, Tosh?"
The teen nodded.
"Just got a headache, that's all."
"Then you need to take some of the tablets they gave you, that's why they're there for."
"I'll survive."
He felt Hitoshi's head move against him to look up before it returned back down.
"I wish didn't have a huge ugly scar over my eye, you're lucky in that respect."
"I'm sure it looks fine, Toshi."
The teen huddled closer.
"I forget you can't just see what I look like."
"Then why don't you describe yourself. I probably should have asked you to do that way before now, I'm sorry about that."
"No, it's fine, I probably would've said no anyway. I don't know, I felt differently about you both back then, it's weird how much can change in two months." Hitoshi explained before taking a breath. "Anyway, I uh, I have purple hair that has a mind of its own. Hizashi is determined that I use hair gel but I don't, it just sticks up like that. Apparently it must be genetic because Hajime has the same hair too. I have purple eyes, and bags under them, also genetic. I have a lot of scars on my arms from cuts; I'm not the reason for any of them so you don't have to worry about that, the League just liked playing the knife game. I have a lot of needle sites on the crook of my elbows too from another game. The police immediately thought I did drugs but I don't, the League were just fucked up. Aside from that, I don't know, I'm pretty tall. I had another growth spurt the other week which was why Hizashi and I had to go out for clothes. Apparently I'm five foot ten, which isn't that much smaller than you."
"You should have seen me back at UA, I was really short then. I've caught Hizashi up but there was a huge difference in those days."
"I think that's everything."
Shouta nodded.
"Thanks." He offered a smile. "I'll be honest, it wasn't the picture I had."
"Really?" Hitoshi smirked.
"Yeah, I knew your hair stuck up because of purposely messing it up but I didn't realise it was like you were using hair gel."
The teen laughed.
"Yeah Kacchan teases me for how it just basically grows while I dry it."
Shouta rubbed the back of his neck, missing the first time with not having to adjust for the scarf.
"Aww you gave him it without me? Boo." Hizashi announced his presence in the room as he walked over.
"I didn't know you'd want to see it."
"Well I did but nevermind." The voice hero took a seat.
"Hitoshi was just describing himself to me."
"Oh cool, it's hard isn't it?"
Hitoshi nodded.
"We were also talking about scars."
Hizashi offered a soft smile.
"Just because my scarf ends up covering mine doesn't mean I'm ashamed of them, it shows that I'm a survivor not a victim, just as yours do." Shouta explained.
The voice hero licked his thumb, wiping one cheek before doing the same with the other revealing dark red marks and idents as the concealer wiped away.
"My parents put me up for adoption after I was born. I'd already gave myself severe hearing loss so by time I was two or three and couldn't communicate properly it only made me cry louder. No one wanted the kid with the quirk who wouldn't shut up so they found a quick solution. You're not supposed to wear muzzles for extended periods because it can cause damage which is why the second I saw you I wanted to adopt you on the spot."
Hitoshi's eyes were wide.
"I know what it's like to be silenced which is why I was so strongly against you keeping the muzzle back in your room that day. Guess it brings back memories for the both of us, huh?"
The teen practically leapt off the couch as he wordlessly crossed the room to the voice hero and pulled him into a hug.
Hizashi smiled, returning the embrace.
"I'm sorry."
"You did nothing wrong, and you didn't know. It wasn't your fault that they made you feel like you had to wear it. You were still figuring stuff out and that was completely fine, we understood that."
"He also has one on his knuckle apparently but that was from something very different." Shouta added with a smirk.
"What did you do?" Hitoshi furrowed an eyebrow.
"It's a long story."
Hitoshi smiled and before long he found himself getting emotional.
"Hey, what's all this for?" Hizashi asked as tears slowly began to trickle down the teen's cheeks.
Shouta sat forward on the couch clearly concerned.
"I- I just… I wish I could have been with you both forever."
And if that didn't break both their hearts.
Hizashi held him even tighter.
"Well you're with us now and that's all that matters, yeah? We'll make up all those years and more, just you wait."
"We do have one more thing we wanted to talk to you about. We were gonna' ask when the forms arrived but then everything happened."
"Ooooh yeah!"
"I'll go get them, one sec."
Shouta walked over to the sidetable, flicking through a pile of papers. He held one of them up to Zashi.
"This one?"
"Yep." The voice hero confirmed.
He handed the papers to Hitoshi.
"'Papers for Adoption – Hitoshi Shinsou'."
Hitoshi's eyes widened as he looked between the two heroes.
"You want… to adopt me?"
They both smiled.
"Nothing would make us happier."
The teen looked nervous as his gaze fell to the ground.
"Are... are you sure?"
Hizashi walked over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I don't think we've ever been so sure about anything, Toshi. You mean a lot to us and we thought it was about time we proved that rather than just asking you to take our word. You're already a part of this family, but we wanted to make it permanent."
A sob spilt from his lips as he buried himself against the voice hero, wrapping his arms around him.
"Thank you, thank you!"
He then rushed to his feet and over to the erasure hero, making sure not to knock him off balance as he hugged him tight.
"Yes!"
Shouta smiled.
"There's one more thing you need to decide but there's no rush." He began. "Because we're officially adopting you, you have the choice of whether you want to keep your own surname or take ours."
"I took Shouta's surname when we got married but I still use my own for all my work related stuff so if you did want to pick ours you'd be Hitoshi Aizawa."
"We talked to your parents already and they want you to know that you have their best wishes in whichever choice you make."
Hitoshi's lip wobbled.
"Aizawa." His small voice answered. "Please."
Shouta bit his lip as his own tears began to fall.
"Then Hitoshi Aizawa it is."
Hizashi joined in on the hug.
"Thank you." The teen's weak tone broke off as he began to sniffle, holding tight onto his… parents. His actual, legal parents. "Thank you."
