Special thanks to Seimika for Inspiring this chapter with their comment.
Had anyone told Emery Aris two weeks ago that he would be thankful that some random kid had bought the family complex he would have scoffed at them, but that was what happened.
He couldn't put words to his anger when he learned his pompous and narcissistic mother had gotten so deep into debt and then chose to put the family property that he was supposed to inherit up for auction so she could get more brand-name shoes.
But only being sixteen and having no claim since everything in his father's will went to his stupid mother there was little Emery could do to stop her, and not for the first time Emery wondered how the hell his father ever put up with that selfish she-devil and was deeply disgusted he had her blood in his veins, and that day Emery swore he'd cut ties as soon as possible.
He could remember being dragged along by his stupid ex-mother and being quietly outraged with her excitement when the profit she would get off the complex kept getting higher and higher until it finally sold, and to some snot-nosed kid younger than him of all people, not that the wretched woman cared.
The buyer introduced himself as Midoriya and asked a bunch of questions that the she-devil couldn't be bothered with and forced him to answer instead, the mossy brat had in one hour shown more interest in the family property than his ex-mother ever did.
The complex had fallen apart due to that woman's lack of upkeep and the building didn't have any residents to complain about it because the she-devil chased them out, Emery couldn't suppress a growl when Midoriya mentioned bringing in a construction company.
The complex had been in their family for five generations (since his father's family immigrated to Japan) and now it was going to be torn apart all because of the his stupid selfish woman that was his biological mother.
Emery wanted to screech at the top of his lungs when he saw part of the building being destroyed two days later and he had avoided going around the property to keep himself from tearing the workers apart.
He was so sure the complex was gone that he was confused when he saw old lady Ito and that she thanked him for finally getting the heating in the building fixed, mainly because the she-devil had for sure kicked Ito out and the building was gone.
Emery followed her home and saw the complex wasn't just still standing but in better condition than it had been in years, going inside didn't clear much up as all the residents his mother kicked out were apparently living there again. He had to pull one of the kids living there aside to learn just what the heck was going on.
Midoriya had somehow tracked everyone his ex-mother forced out and offered them each the ability to come back and promised them they could stay for free the first month after all the trouble the previous landlord gave them, and well no one in the district was dumb enough to turn such a deal down.
Reluctantly Emery approached Midoriya to see what his deal was and found out the rich kid just got his rocks off on not being a shitty person or something because he was just a goodie two shoes.
The kid even offered to let him run the complex himself since he had somehow picked up on how Emery's loss of the property gravely upset him.
That was a week ago and Emery hadn't regretted taking the kid's offer if only because it kept him away from the she-devil, his "mother" hadn't even noticed Emery had moved out last week and or that he'd dropped out of high school.
Management wasn't his cup of tea but it sure beats suffering through another math class, and he had done a good enough job keeping the place together considering how much the she-devil complained about it being impossible.
But there was one thing Midoriya changed that he approved of and that was the rooftop garden, it wasn't ready to start growing anything just yet, but the project was moving along faster because every day a group of orphans would come by to work on the community garden.
No one in the complex gave him any complaints about this arrangement and some of the residents like old lady Ito would go up to help the kids with building the garden.
This brought him to Wednesday a week after he had moved into the building and he watched as Midoriya was the one to lead the orphans to the building this time chatting amicably with all of them despite their ages, even the teenagers who were older than him didn't seem to have a problem following him around or listening to him.
The toddlers were utterly obscene with how they clung to Midoriya in any way they could, literally so as one kid had a quirk that made what should be two arms into eight slimy tentacles, ones absolutely covered in suction cups and she wrapped those around Midoriya's neck for a piggyback ride, something Midoriya apparently didn't care about despite how the smelly (read: putrid) slime was covering his shirt.
Midoriya looked up and gave him a wave and Emery nodded back to him in acknowledgment before they all went up to the roof, Emery sat himself down in a corner and watched as Midoriya led the kids around, the toddlers following the greenette whilst the older kids put things together following Midoriya's instructions.
The kids were all having fun, so he refrained from nitpicking about why the kids were so happy to listen to Midoriya of all people.
Unfortunately, upon looking over the edge of the roof he saw the she-devil's car pulling up and growled when she started walking up to the entrance then unsurprisingly, when the doors didn't open for her, she started banging on the door and screaming for him to come down, Emery's claws dug into the edge of the roof to keep himself from jumping down and ripping her a new one.
*Of course, the bitch won't leave me the fuck alone.* He thought feeling even more outraged as he could hear the she-devil use his birth name, not that he expected any different because he couldn't remember the bitch ever respecting him as an individual instead of her own personal life-sized, dress up doll.
"You know that crazy bitch down there?" A teen with bug eyes and large elf ears asked scowling and presumably looking down at the she-devil, Emery scowled back at him, he was not in the habit of spilling his private affairs to whoever asked.
"That's the biggest mistake my father ever made." He snarled through gritted teeth, the teen just nodded completely understanding, something Emery was inclined to believe since he'd overheard Bug-eyes complaining about his parents once or twice… not that the teen was trying to be quiet about it.
Then Bug-eyes turned towards Midoriya "Deku-Sensei." The teen called using that weird-ass nickname people kept using for the greenette, Midoriya sprang up and excused himself from the kids before heading over to the two of them, the teen pointed down towards the she-devil "The bitch is bothering dragon breath." The teen said outing him and Emery glared at Bug-eyes then hissed.
Midoriya suddenly tensed up and looked over the edge only to frown and then head towards the roof access doors with an odd look on his face, Emery was about to tell Midoriya to not bother with his bat-shit ex-mother, but the teen just put a hand on his shoulder "Just let Deku-Sensei handle it." Bug-eyes told him and motioned him to turn back to the she-devil.
Reluctantly, he looked back over the edge and briefly met his "mother's" eyes before one of the doors opened and Midoriya stepped out quickly closing the door behind him "Can I help you, Ma'am?" Midoriya asked, despite being five floors up Emery could hear how oddly neutral Midoriya's voice was compared to the rest of the time he heard the boy speak.
The she-devil immediately switched to the sickly-sweet mask she used when she sucked up to one of her rich "boytoys" "Hello Midoriya-Chan, I'm so sorry for bothering you but my daughter is going through that phase where kids hate their parents, and her latest rebellion has had her staying here with her friends." She lied, looking for all the world the perfect picture of a concerned mother.
Emery clenched his fists seething as the she-devil spewed that crap and he was ready to scream from the rooftop that he was not that bitch's daughter and that he never was, but the teen again stopped him by using his long fingers to keep his snout closed.
"No, no, no. Just wait." Bug-eyes insisted, Emery ripped the teen's hand off his snout "Don't fucking touch me." He snarled but before he could continue, he heard Midoriya's reply of "Ma'am, I can assure you, your daughter isn't here so can you please leave my property, you're disturbing my residents."
The she-devil was annoyed but didn't show it "Oh but I can see my little Ammi-Chan is right up there." The she-devil responded pointing up at the roof where he was, Emery snarled back at her, and Midoriya's gaze followed to where the she-devil was pointing and he got this bafflingly confused look on his face then turned back to her "Ma'am that is one of my residents' ward Aris, not your daughter." Midoriya corrected.
He was a what now? Emery's fury was overshadowed by his confusion "What?" The she-devil squawked for him "Ma'am I am under no obligation to reveal the personal business of my residents without anything less than a court order." Midoriya sternly replied, his arms crossed, "Now please vacate my property before I call the authorities to escort you off." The greenette requested coming off a touch more strictly.
And oh, did that piss off the bitch and she dropped that stupid facade "I know what my daughter looks like and I will be taking Amy home where she belongs! And you're the only person the police will be interested in talking to, since you're assisting my daughter's kidnappers!" The woman argued, going as far as to strongly poked Midoriya's chest.
Emery involuntarily winced in sympathy having been where the greenette was and knowing how sharp the she-devil's fingernails were considering he could feel them even through his scales, he had to give Midoriya props for not flinching from the bitch's yelling, Emery definitely would have pegged Midoriya to crumble after the slightest hint of aggression since he was so meek.
Another teen, a girl with only one arm in a cast came over probably having overheard the she-devil's screeching, and she scowled once she saw what was going on "That bitch better get her shit together otherwise she's going to be found headless in the bay." She scoffed shaking her head and bug-eyes nodded "The fuck are you talking about?" Emery questioned only to receive a raised eyebrow from the girl.
"Deku-Sensei's got strong ties with powerful people that ain't afraid of ending bitches like that for fucking with him, and if she lays one hand on Deku-Sensei there's no way she won't end up dead." She said very matter-of-factly "Yep, so don't worry about the bitch getting you back. Deku-Sensei doesn't let anyone fuck with his kids." Bug-eyes agreed, flashing him a grin full of fangs that interlocked like a zipper.
"I don't need some brat playing white knight." He growled making bug-eyes scoff in return "Well you better quit and move elsewhere or learn to deal with it, 'cause Deku-Sensei doesn't half-ass protecting his kids." Bug-eyes stated, and Emery would have snapped back if the she-devil didn't start screaming her damn head off "And I am going to sue for every fucking penny you-" the she-devil's dramatics were abruptly caught off as Midoriya tased her.
Emery's jaw dropped, watching in disbelief as the bitch's body spasmed for a couple of seconds before stopping, then when Midoriya knelt to pull the things connecting the she-devil to the taser (he apparently carried) a pair of rabbit quirked people came over to talk with him.
He couldn't hear what they were saying to each other because bug-eyes was laughing too hard "Damn never seen him fucking tase anyone before." Bug-eyes cackled before going over to the group of teenagers to tell them what they saw.
Ashamed Emery was going to tear Bug-eyes limb from limb for spilling his personal business, but some force grabbed him by the shoulder and made him whirl back around to the girl whose eyes were now glowing "As a psychic cursed with chronic empath absorption, I don't get the luxury of not knowing exactly how everyone around me feels about anything," she told him, using her quirk to keep him quiet and in place to listen to her.
"So, believe me when I tell you brat, you're far from the only person who wishes their biological family would have just fucked off, most orphans like us understand that blood doesn't mean shit and we would rather never have anyone adopt us than be put back in a crappy situation." She said going as far as to lean in really close to his face to get her point across.
"And as a group of fucked up kids with trust issues, that know better than to get attached to anyone that shows us a smidge of kindness, it says a fucking lot when almost all the squirts call Deku-Sensei "Deku-Nii" and that we rely on him to take care of us instead those damn social workers." She added before releasing him and walking away.
Emery, whilst deeply tempted to turn the girl's number of limbs from three to two didn't, he only snarled at her instead of retaliating if only because Midoriya had somehow returned to the roof and he got right back into helping the kids, Emery forced himself to swallow his anger to just stew in a corner away from them to calm himself down.
"Aris-San?" Midoriya softly called, making him jump, having not noticed when the greenette had decided to approach him "Yes?" Emery hissed, Midoriya gave him a sheepish smile and pulled out some papers from his messenger bag "I'm sorry for not getting these to you earlier but city hall was being difficult, put them someplace safe. I have backups but you should have them on hand as well." He said offering them to him.
Cautiously Emery took and read the papers, unsure what Midoriya was talking about until he saw the second paragraph and his jaw dropped.
Because in Emery's clawed hands were child emancipation papers for him and they were signed by the she-devil, ones that were dated from last week and formal foster family papers stating that old lady Ito was his official guardian.
Emery turned to question the boy, but Midoriya was already back to being fully occupied by the rambunctious toddlers and working on their rooftop garden, but something about the boy had changed in Emery's mind.
Maybe he hadn't noticed earlier due to his anger with the situation that caused them to meet, and it might just be his dragon quirk speaking but Emery swore Midoriya's eyes were an emerald color.