Chapter Text
Izuku was walking down the corridor with Mei, heading to the cafeteria for lunch. Usually, their class takes turns making lunches, but everyone had been working overtime trying to get their projects in. So, he offered to get some variety from the cafeteria for lunch. He dragged Mei away from her workbench, which almost resulted in his hair being pulled from his scalp, to give her a chance to walk around and for help carrying the food.
Their final consisted of a group project, an engineer, design, and coding focus were put into groups and given a hero to make a costume and gadgets for. Izuku being the only analyst focus, was helping both groups and had to make one gadget for each.
Needless to say, the food was necessary for the work they were assigned.
“I’m telling you, I’m about to have a breakthrough. Pulling me away from my workbench is going to prolong my greatness!” Mei complained, gabbing Izuku’s arm in what he assumed was an attempt to convince him to skip lunch.
He snorted and fixed his uniform sleeve from where her grip crumpled the fabric. “This isn’t prolonging the inevitable as long as starvation or dehydration would, I’m doing you a favor in the long run,” Izuku chuckled.
“I’ll do you a favor when I shove my foot up your-“ Mei was cut off when Izuku was pulled back.
The training he’d received when he was little kicked in, twisting the person’s arm over his shoulder and flipping the boy on his back.
“Fuck, Izuku- was that necessary?” Hitoshi responded, groaning as he sat up from the hard linoleum. Izuku half-heartedly apologized as Mei glared heatedly at the taller teen.
“I think it was,” Mei said, her glare boring into Izuku’s brother.
“Mei,” he reprimanded, though it lacked any heat. Izuku turned back towards Hitoshi, watching the boy slowly get up off the floor. “What is it Aizawa-Kun?” His brother looked up at him, hurt before looking towards Mei and shrugging it off.
“Can we talk for a second?” He asked, finally up off the floor.
“We’re in the middle of something,” Mei said hastily, grabbing Izuku by the arm.
“It’s okay, give me two minutes,” Izuku reassured her, patting her hand where it was holding his, now re-crumpled uniform. The pink-haired girl glared menacingly but relinquished her grip on his arm and walked ahead towards the vending machines, sending one final glare over her shoulder to the hero student.
When she was far enough away, Izuku turned his head back towards Hitoshi.
“What do you want?” Hitoshi took a step back, his face showing some form of hurt, which is ridiculous.
“You never came to the family meeting, we had a lot we needed to talk about and you didn’t show up, didn’t even text me back,” Hitoshi said, his voice rising to a volume of disbelief.
After Shoto had left the support labs, Izuku had stared at Hitoshi’s message for a while, before turning off his phone and getting back to his projects.
He’d ended up falling asleep, dreaming about some false reality of going to the family meeting, having the perfect family again.
It wasn’t until he woke up he realized how ridiculous everything had been. His guardians had never tried to teach him to say any different last name, he would have seen school and legal documents with it anyway, no one went into his room, he imagined even less so when he left. On top of it all, he knew nothing about the little girl other than her appearance and name.
Yagi-San had told him the basics when he was driving Izuku to the support course dorm, that her name was Eri and she was being used by some Yakuza group. Izuku didn’t know much more than that, so he’d have no idea how she’d react to him as a person. Though probably not too unlike that weird dream.
There were more weird parts of the dream, but what stood out to Izuku was how it seemed they seemed to be perfectly misunderstood parents. As much as he had believed that growing up, after experiencing real family in the Sheild’s, his friends, and even Yagi-San.
This was reality and he had no idea if that could be fixed.
“Last I checked, I wasn’t apart of the family,” Izuku said, his voice bitter with resentment.
“That’s not true and you know it,” Hitoshi said sternly.
“Really? Then, where was anyone when I was reaching out from across the ocean? Where was anyone when my flight landed and I had been waiting for someone to come pick me up?” Izuku felt his voice start to rise before hearing a classroom door from down the corridor shut, causing him to take a deep breath before lowering his volume. “Why didn’t anyone reach out to me once a whole other child came into the picture?”
Hitoshi rubbed the nape of his neck, looking tired and sheepish, “I know it looks bad Zuke, but I promise it wasn’t malicious. It just… there was a lot going on and we just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“But none of you tried; you had someone else come get me from the airport, and I had to see this picture-perfect family eating dinner right as I got home. This family clearly has no room for me. So, excuse me for not coming to your stupid family meeting,” Izuku narrowed his eyes as he looked at the teen. “I’ve stopped pretending to be apart of your little family, Aizawa, it’s time you do the same.”
He left Hitoshi in the hallway, frozen and maybe a little hurt. Izuku couldn’t find it in himself to care though, he just wanted to get back to his friends.
_________
At the end of the school day, Izuku was looking over some analysis for Mei when the lab door slid open, causing everyone to look up in confusion. Standing in the doorway was Shoto, who was looking equally confused.
“Shoto, come on in! You can wait at my workbench I’ll be there in just a second!” The younger teen nodded and headed towards Izuku’s workbench, when he sat down he focused his eyes back on Mei just to see her staring at him. “What?”
“He’s visited you every day for the past week and a half. I’m starting to think he has a thing for you,” Mei said, her tone teasing. Izuku rolled his eyes despite feeling his cheeks warm up a little out of embarrassment.
“You’re crazy, he’s just trying to be a good friend,” Izuku brushed her comment away and tries to focus back on the analysis but the pink-haired girl snorts, her eyes glinting with mischief.
“I try to be a good friend to you, but I don’t look at you like you personally built the universe,” she laughed.
Ah, she’s in one of these moods.
“He doesn’t look at me like that, crazy. Just remember to take measures to counteract her quirk drawback, and you’ll be fine,” He said as he gathered up his notebook to head back to his workbench, where his friend, thank you very much, was waiting on him.
“Hello, Izuku.” Shoto said when Izuku got close enough, with a smile he greeted him back.
“What brings you here, just trying to hang, or do you want some analysis done?”
“Neither,” Izuku raised an eyebrow, confusion clear, “Well, I would like to hang out, but I have a question regarding Aizawa-Sensei.” Izuku frowned but nodded.
“Okay, what do you want to know?” Shoto though for a moment, seemingly trying to figure out how to approach the question before speaking.
“I suppose I’m just curious if everything was okay. He’s seemed pretty put-out with everybody and keeps looking like he’s one stupid complaint from committing treason,” Shoto explained, looking at Izuku in anticipation.
The green-haired teen shrugged, his curls bouncing with the movement as he started making notes in his notebook.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with him. Why not ask Aizawa-Kun?”
Shoto tilted his head, brows furrowing in confusion. “Well, I suppose I could, but he looks equally upset and… I’m sorry, are you… not in his custody anymore?”
Izuku stopped his pen, clicking it closed before looking back up at his friend. “I don’t see them much. Around campus, yes, like when coming to your class, but otherwise I don’t live with them, I stay in the dorm, and if I’m not there I’m at Mei’s.”
“Can I ask why?” Shoto seemed genuinely curious and a little concerned.
Izuku knew how his friend grew up, the brutal training, the distance from his siblings and the lack of emotional connection with his father. He knew the heterochromatic teen was probably concerned it was a similar situation, and Izuku would hate for him to lose trust in his teacher by keeping silent.
On the other hand, if Izuku told Shoto and he got as upset as Mei had, he figured to trust would be lost either way.
Honesty is the best policy, though. The truth is far better than anything else Shoto may think is going on.
“Back when I was ten… Hitoshi was adopted. Something kind of switched with the dynamic. They focused on him so much that they, inadvertently, pushed me to the side. It wasn’t entirely their fault, I let them because I didn’t see the big deal but, as we got older the distance just kept growing,” Izuku explained. “I had gotten back from my internship on I-Island after weeks of no communication from anyone, just to find out they adopted another kid.” Shoto was frowning, his eyes looking a little sad for Izuku.
“I’m sorry, Izuku. Have you talked to any of them since our class?” Izuku thought for a moment before recounting his interaction with Hitoshi the other day.
“Otherwise, nope. Why should I put any effort in when they haven’t? I bet they couldn’t even tell you my favorite color.” He knew he was acting bitter, but he couldn’t help it.
“I don’t blame you, I hope they get better or that you get the family you deserve,” Shoto muttered.
“Mei, darn it, get back here!” Suzuki exclaimed, running around Nonaka’s table chasing after, something Izuku couldn’t seen.
Nonaka was laughing at their antics while everyone else was yelling some chant, Morikawa and Levi were chanting ‘fight,’ while Hirota was holding her head in her hands.
Izuku smiled turning back to look at Shoto.
“Don’t worry, I have.”