Chapter 5: The verdict, a black cap affair
Mon, Aug 8th, XX45, 3:22am
Lots of things are strange these days.
Izuku could say that everyday at the shrine, eating offerings or taking the paper requests, was odd. Unordinary to anyone but Izuku, at the very least.
This, though, was beyond normality for even Izuku.
It was normal for Izuku to be up during the cold of night, running, guiding-general rabbit things-but being awake during the cold hours and being warm? On a mattress of all things!
Rare indeed.
It was normal for Izuku to wrap up in his pink hoodie, scramble into the shrine roof, and sleep the morning away. Being wrapped in not just his hoodie but also a handful of blankets?
WILD! Who on this planet would'a thunk it?
Izuku was pleasantly warm in his boy-form, for once.
The pressure of not one, not two, but three! Three blankets on top of him was so comforting that it almost pressed Izuku into a sleep that would never let go.
Almost.
He would settle into the perfect crook of the mattress, the perfect place in the covers, and promptly get an irritating itch in his ear or on his knee.
Or! Or he would get halfway to dream land, bones to jelly, and his brian would supply an awful image of recent events.
It was terrible and awful and all the things that were making his wonderful-sleepy-time a horrendous mess of feelings and need for physical comfort or some crap.
Maybe he should get some water? Yeah...good idea Izuku.
Hydration rids children of 100% of all trauma Guarantee!
(if only :( )
Izuku emerged from the bed, one of the three blankets sluffing off of him as he rose, the other two draping around his shoulders and stopping at his ankles.
He slipped out of the room in silence, careful steps hidden by the sound of his clothes shifting, the sound of cotton on cotton and his thighs brushing underneath his boxers.
It was odd to be in an almost strangers living room-someone he didn't know all that well occupied this space on a regular basis, hell, he lived here. Lived, breathed, cooked, cleaned, and Izuku was the one he allowed to see it in all its vulnerability.
It was another thing to add to the growing list of stangness.
He had successfully crept into the kitchen, the ambient light filtering into the windows left a blue coloring to the relatively empty space, and he was tempted to just zone out and feel time pass. Izuku shook his head in an attempt to focus his eyes before reaching to open a random cabinet.
Luck was with him, it seemed, because he only had to wait until the third cabinet door to open on a quiet hinge before he found the glasses.
Well, mugs, but who was he to complain?
He reached up a gangly limb and retrieved the first mug he saw, a yellow one with black paw prints around the edges, something Izuku would not have expected Eraserzawa, the man, the myth, the legend, to own.
He slowly turned on the kitchen faucet and let the water trickle into the cup.
Aizawa was probably something else he could add to the growing list of oddness to the whole scenario.
A grown and worn pro hero had given enough attention to a single unregistered boy and was willing to spend time out of his busy schedule to give mentioned boy the time of day.
Izuku would brush it off with his typical, "It's odd, but so am I," and leave it there, undiscovered, unchanged, no questions asked, but Izuku had a feeling (something a little deeper than marrow) that he wouldn't be able to leave this alone and keep his sanity.
The mug pressed against his mouth and he nearly dumped the whole thing on the floor in his haste to chug the liquid-trauma-remedy.
He had set the mug down, next to the sink, when his ears suddenly straightened out at a noise behind him. Something had moved and for a second Izuku feared it was Ketchup again. His frozen form loomed over the sink, keeping still except for his swiveling ears and prickling hair.
It seemed for a moment that it was nothing, the mute paws of a cat, something indistinct ,but enough to alert him of movement. Nothing to fear. He had relaxed the tension in his shoulders and started to move when he heard it again-no, he hadn't heard it. He felt it.
There was something circling him like a hawk and he was at its mercy.
That tension tightened until a single thought passed his mind and a smell made it to his nose.
Cologne, something like a deep amber or maybe cinnamon. Nothing special except that scent only belonged to Eraser.
Eraser is behind me.
Tension finally leaked out of his shoulders, his ears swiveled to meet his target and he slowly turned to face his demise.
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," Aizawa was looming by the wall, he looked like he had never even fallen asleep-which, actually, was probably exactly right.
"Kid," he sounded like a tired parent.
Izuku almost snorted at the thought.
Almost.
"What-kid, why are you up?" the question was asked but they both knew the answer.
Fear, the lingering python with a vendetta.
Izuku pinched his eyebrows together, "Couldn't sleep?" a lame excuse.
Aizawa huffed, not irritation but exasperation, "Follow me,"
There was a second of hesitation, a moment where Izuku was genuinely confused, but ultimately he followed the man through the apartment.
Aizawa beckoned Izuku through the kitchen and to the small living room space. They sat at the couch and Aizawa gestured to the plastic bag that had been moved there before Izuku had gone to bed. The bag itself was nothing to speak of, although on closer inspection Izuku recognized the corner store branded to the plastic.
Aizawa had settled deeper into the couch, he cracked an eye open and made a small gesture with his hand, toward the bag on the table, then relaxed into the grey couch cushions again.
Izuku took that as an invitation to look, so he grabbed the goodie-bag and curiously settled next to Aizawa.
Izuku pushed the plastic aside and pulled out the two items nested inside.
The bag held an unopened pack of hair-doingies and a 'Bunny Blast!' brand candy bar, the kind that granny used to sneak into his pocket when he was smaller.
The surprised gasp he let out did not stir the man much, but when he started excitedly tearing open the hair-band pack, Aizawa cracked his eye open to steal a look.
As quickly as he could, Izuku pulled a single band and made a pitiful attempt to pull his curls back at the base of his neck.
'Zawa gave a small huff before he intervened, a quiet, "May I?"
Izuku gave a nod, permission to help.
Zawahead reached over, gently turning Izuku's head-movements carefully projected-and carded his fingers through the boy's hair to release the death grip the band had on a wayward clump of curls
"You have to collect all your hair where you want it," careful fingers pushed his curls from the base of his ears to the back of his head, "All it takes is a bit of patience and some practice,"
Izuku just took it in stride, he had never really had a chance to put his hair up, nothing more than a headband at most. Usually, when his hair got this long, Kagayaku would visit and give him a trim, or he would do it himself. It had never stayed this long before, but the gentle hands pulling his curls into the tight grip of a hair band might be worth the effort of long hair.
Ah yes, touch-starvation. Don't make it weird, Izuku, it would be really awkward and super hard to explain if you started crying because one (1) other person gave you physical contact.
This is totally normal and fine to have a grouchy, underground Pro-Hero thoughtfully pull your hair back at three in the morning.
Totally normal and very cool.
A kind pat was placed on his head before the Gargoyle-man sloped off the couch and back down the hall, a dismissive wave thrown over his shoulder.
Haha, very cool.
That was totally normal and okay.
(what the actual Fuck)
-o-
3: 57am
Emotions were weird and unappreciated.
Simple facts of life were easily twisted because of pride or guilt, shame often took over reasoning and the inpermanent swell of brain-chemical was illogical.
Though, it seemed, even Aizawa Shota was a victim of human nature.
Izuku was something odd he honestly had no idea how to understand, a rabbit boy that had kind of wormed his way into Aizawa's hold and Shota didn't think he could let go, even if he wanted to.
He was a puzzle, a game, and Nedzu knew it.
The question arises: how could a whole fucking teenager not have a single document of any kind to prove his existence?
Clearly external tampering, but why? What would someone get out of turning away a child, especially to that degree?
There was no registered quirk, no birth certificate, no missing child report, no anything at all to tie back to The Chang'e Hare, the gangly, almost-vigilante that has been living in a chinese goddesses shrine for who-knows-how-long.
Even Nedzu had agreed in his Email that Izuku was an enigma.
Nedzu doesn't just do that.
Whatever the case was, he had to be up in nearly three hours, so bed time it was.
He hoped the boy was there in the morning-proper.
-o-
6:00am
At six in the morning sharp, exactly one hour before his alarm, Shota's eyes shot open.
Everything was terrible.
The only reason he ever woke up before his alarm was because he heard something or he had night terrors; he could truthfully say he had not had night terrors.
Conclusion thus far: something made a sound, he was awake, up in nothing but some pink sweats one hour before his alarm.
He had started to slip out of his room when he heard movement in the kitchen. It was almost deja-vu from the night before. Izuku was digging through the cabinets looking for kami-knows-what and Shota watched from beside the wall, waiting for the boy to notice him.
Izuku had apparently noticed him because he said, "You smell like cinnamon and coffee,"
An ear trained on him, swiveling to face Shota with every movement, not sparing a look in his direction.
"Are you going to make it a habit to dig through my cupboards?" he was going to opt out of responding to whatever the fuck the kid just said.
He pushed off the wall with a small huff, dispersing his weight between both his feet again, the floor creaking slightly under him, "Should I get baby locks?"
An amused huff made its way out of the cabinet, the boy's face was still buried, digging for gold.
"I swear I'm not gonna raid your pantry too bad!" Izuku had successfully found Nemuri's snack stash, "Plus you have Cheetos, Granny never shares her Cheetos," his nose scrunched and his short eyebrow pushed so close together when he said it. Aizawa was almost tempted to snap a picture, the thought quickly shooed away by the boy slipping from his seat on the counter to sit with his legs in front of him.
In the middle of the kitchen.
He was so glad he didn't have to go to work today.
Aizawa worked his way through the kitchen around the boy, long legs threatening to trip him everytime he turned around. The keurig started its signature rattling sound and he slid his coffee cup underneath it to catch the scalding liquid. The boy continued his incessant Cheeto-crunching, the sound accompanied by the crinkle of the bag.
Aizawa gave a bone deep, long-winded sigh when the cup was finally full, he drank it in one breath like it was a shot, scalding bean juice reviving him to his very core.
Shota had been thinking up a plan for a while (48 hours), letting it brew on a back burner. He needed to get information; Izuku had no recorded past, no traceable family connections, no home, recognized education or beneficial consistency at all in his life.
The list of things the boy didn't have was much much longer than the list of things he did have, and it made Shota feel as if he had failed the kid in some way. As if Shota could have known that a little boy that did not exist needed his help.
It was illogical and pitiful to let himself wallow.
The right conclusion-and one he had made just the night before-was to keep Nedzu from using him as a game piece. Nedzu was clever beyond belief, had wits for miles, all of it, but his weakness (or perhaps strength) was that he was not human.
He knew how humanity worked better than humanity itself did, but he could not build a character of himself that genuinely cared for a child like a human would.
It wasn't in his gene's, training, or fancy.
He would end up either making a monster out of the child on his kitchen floor, or he would accidently break him beyond repair. Shota feared that Izuku was already close to breaking down that far, if recent events said anything about his mental state.
This line of thought, the one for and about Izuku, prompted his second interrogation.
He knew where the boy was staying, who he visited, how he escaped-he still didn't know how the kid would react to being put back into proper society, if that was even a smart idea, who his biological parents might be, who would want to erase him, and how long he had been staying in the streets.
It made quite the checklist of questions for one day, so he started with this:
"You can stay here, Izuku," what's a better way to get some answers than keeping him close? "Do you need anything from the shrine?"
The boy had frozen, a cheeto halfway to his mouth, to stare wide eyed at him.
When he had shaken some sense back into his head he still looked like a gaping fish.
"I-What?" Shota continued to keep an eyebrow raised in anticipation for an answer, "Thanks?"
Shota just stared, Izuku falling over himself to get a coherent sentence out of his mouth.
"I-what-uhm-well, maybe, I mean? I like beds. Do I need to like...pay rent?"
"Izuku," Shota was being rash, he could tell, but there was a half-baked plan already forming in his mind, "I don't need anything from you, except a few questions answered."
Izuku still looked like a dazed goldfish.
He offered a metaphorical hand, "I just want a few things answered about your past, if you can, and in exchange I will offer you more than a roof over your head," hopefully this wasn't so abrupt and out-of-the-blue that it freaked the kid out.
Aizawa was freaking out.
Everything was terrible.
-o-
Izuku sat on an almost familiar kitchen floor that belonged to an almost stranger eating a bag of almost-his cheetos.
Back to the previous observation he had about the hundreds of 'Maybes' this last couple of days has had, except now change it to 'Almost'.
Because that makes sense.
His toes curled in a comforting pattern of left, right, left, right. His mind rushed with meaningless incomplete thoughts like it always does when someone presses something into his hands he wasn't expecting.
Left, right, left, right.
Aizawa had given an offer that not even Granny had ever given (not truely, not genuinely, not when it mattered)
Aizawa had offered a listening ear that not even Kagayaku had ever offered (not more than a few minutes, not anything worth mentioning)
Aizawa Shota had given Izuku one-name gifts for no reason at all (not slipped into his pocket to keep a secret but a genuine gift for no reason. Only Aizawa and Granny. Only these two people ever cared, but between them, who cared more?)
Izuku looked into a pair of tired eyes, an older, thinner reflection of his own.
"What do you want to know?" Izuku asked.
The question sounded like a death sentence.
Maybe this time he would be truly wanted.
(Notes: thank you for reading, for the attention, and for the people following my little fic. please leave a review if you liked it or even if you hated it. all that and what-not. there will be a new chapter for Unexpected Consequences soon as well as a small IzukuxFemFoxOc fic that was requested of me. do with that information what you will.)
