Playing with Eri was one of the best past-times any heroic student could have. And since Aizawa-sensei (and other teachers) often had stuff to do, meetings to attend and paperwork to fill, class 1-A could indulge in it very often. They all liked entertaining the little girl—shut up Bakugou, we know you love it when she asks you to bride her hair—and she liked being around her favourite heroes in the making so it was a win-win situation on all fronts. Really, who knew that playing house with a seven-year-old could help so much with relaxation?
And I know what you're waiting for. "The only issue was—" but there are no issues. Everyone is happy. This is a utopia. Of course Aizawa-sensei had to establish some rules first, like no, you can't show her your quirks if the action will destroy the building or harm someone and no, you can't feed her just apples, she needs to eat other things too and no, she can't stay for a sleepover, she has a different curfew than you.
And so the students happily babysat the girl with no issue whatsoever.
Okay, there was one problem. Sometimes there wasn't a single responsible adult on campus who could pick her up before her curfew ended and get her to her room in teachers' dormitories. Which ended in a few very interesting situations like Present Mic barging into Dorms Alliance in pyjamas, with flopped hair and without his green contacts in five minutes before curfew ends, startling the poor girl. Or Midoriya running around the campus for an hour, looking for Aizawa-sensei's backup key which was attached to a calico cat.
Fun.
But that happened only a few times and the class was usually notified in advance if there would be a slip-up. And so, 15 minutes before Eri was supposed to be picked up by Aizawa-sensei, Midoriya got a message.
cat this out
Sorry Problem Child, but I won't be able to pick up Eri today.
Injury during patrol, she can't see me like that.
A student I trust will come and pick her up.
You don't need to accompany him, he'll manage.
That was a little unusual. It was the first time sensei sent out a student instead of another teacher. Midoriya dismissed the thought about it being unusual pretty quickly. It was probably Mirio. Because who else?
"Eri— I mean, Your Highness, Aizawa-s—dono won't be able to pick you up but he sent someone to escort you," he gently informed Her Highness Crowned Princess of Yuuei Kingdom.
Eri nodded with all sublimed grace she could muster before dismissing him with a wave and that was that. They had another few minutes of fun, why waste it?
Royal Advisor Yaomomo whispered something to the princess and she smiled brightly. It still made students around her—I'm sorry—her court feel warmth in their chests. She has come so far...
"Bring forth the dessert Royal Cook Satō!" the princess demanded giggling lightly. Satō walked out of the kitchen, bowed deeply and brought Eri a tray full of chocolate chip cookies with apple filling.
"Your Highness, I hope the results are satisfactory," he said bowing again.
The princess took a single cookie from the tray, looked it over with pretended judgment before biting it lightly with her eyes closed.
And then she pushed the rest of the cookie into her mouth murmuring "Shooo tashty!" before grabbing another.
Everyone cracked a smile at that because wow, Eri was such a cute child.
And she wasn't just cute. She was also very bright and intelligent and so, she started cleaning "the mess" from her play exactly five minutes before she was to be picked up. It wasn't a lot of things, and Kaminari managed to distract her with small sparks for long enough that Midoriya, Shōji and Uraraka cleaned most things like pillow forts and makeshift throne before the little girl could attempt to help out.
She was just kind like that.
The rest of the time was spent gently messing with her hair—she really liked that as long as her horn wasn't touched—and telling her non-drastic stories from their various internships. She really liked the one about Ryūku getting stuck in the doorframe after the heroine half shifted from anger from seeing her favourite baseball team losing in semi-finals.
And then the doorbell rang.
Midoriya rose from the sofa to open the door for his senpai only to be faced with someone not older, not blond, and most definitely not Mirio.
"Hi Shinsō-kun? What are you doing here..?" Midoriya asked, a bit lost as to why was the general education student standing on his dorm porch. Something in his mind flashed a single alarm bell going off.
"Aizawa-sensei didn't tell you? I'm here for Eri," replied the purplehead, rising an eyebrow clearly unimpressed. His eyes seemed to pierce the teen in front of him with venom sending a shiver down his back and suddenly Midoriya was very aware of the fact that The League proved to be able to hack even protected phones a while ago and that they had Toga who very well could have attacked Shinsō in the dark alley and been impersonating him right now.
"Sorry for distrust but can you somehow prove that you're yourself?" Midoriya was really expecting Mirio and no one else, so sue him, he would protect Eri to death even if that meant getting on brainwasher's bad side.
Said teen merely gave him a look before shifting a bit to the left and looking behind him. Midoriya instinctively moved to block his path of sight but he was over 10 centimetres shorter than him so he could only do so much.
"Eri? I'm here," called out Shinsō and the girl was jumping at him in an instant. Midoriya barely saw her zooming behind him.
"Toshi!" Toshi? The class was getting really, really confused. Eri never mentioned Shinsō. "I'm a princess!"
"Congratulations ya little gremlin," said the teen ruffling her hair carefully. Little gremlin?! "Did you say your goodbyes?"
"Oh, right! Wait a minute!" she dashed off excitedly to say her bye-byes to everyone separately.
Meanwhile everyone stared at the brainwasher as if he had grown a second head. He sighed painfully before turning to Midoriya.
"You're scared I'm Toga in disguise, right?" Midoriya nodded. Replying was dangerous, there were rumours that Toga had managed to copy other people's quirks along with their appearance. "Well, why won't you have Eri asking me a question that no one but me would know the answer to? You know, the usual choice in all those books and movies?"
That was... a good idea actually. Midoriya nodded swiftly before turning his attention to Eri, who was now running in his direction, as he was the last person to say her goodbyes too.
"Eri-chan, could you ask Shinsō-kun a question to confirm that it's really him?" he asked carefully, keeping said boy in his vision.
The girl, bless her heart, turned to Shinsō with a very serious face and asked, "Who are my parents?". That made the teen laugh.
"Eri, that's gotta be something harder~" he stated in a sing-songy and so, so fond voice. "But fine, Eraser and Presentation Michael."
Wh
What.
"Correct!" Eri threw her hands up in the air and jumped, clearly expecting Shinsō to catch her. Which he thank the gods did. "And now," she made a dramatic pause, "A second question!"
"Alright, hit me up."
"Uh..." the girl frowned a little, thinking about what to choose, and then suddenly beamed. "I know! Who named Jelly?" Who is Jelly?
"Dad," Shinsō said softly with a gentle smile.
"Yes!" Eri hugged the teen with all her might. "It's my Toshi!"
Midoriya felt as if his brain was about to explode. Or implode.
"Dad..?" he whispered a bit too sharply.
"Is something wrong?" brainwasher's tone wasn't outright hostile, but maybe challenging. He was clearly done and ready to go and so was Eri, peering at the broccoli cautiously.
"No! No! It's just— I was under an impression that Eri was under UA's custody..." Shinsō turned and started walking away, shoulders tense and hackles raised, but stopped at the bottom of staircase.
"Well, she isn't the only one under UA's custody," he said, more to himself than class A. At loss of words Midoriya watched him and Eri until they completely disappeared in the darkness.