Chapter Text
Midoriya floats through Shouta’s apartment like he’s a child in a fantastic dream.
It makes Shouta uncomfortable, the way the boy takes in his surroundings with wide eyes and ginger, curious touches. He’s fascinated by the most basic of things; a glass paperweight is held up in the air, and only put down when Midoriya is satisfied after seeing every color of refracted light. He investigates a fake potted plant with all the intensity of a detective at a crime scene. Shouta’s fridge is opened and closed again and again, Midoriya’s face lighting up both literally and metaphorically each time.
All of this is done while Midoriya is still drowning in his lavish robes. A long sash of deep green embroidered with gold thread trails behind him, and his bare feet pad silently across the floor.
Again, Shouta curses the fact that the police station doesn’t keep spare sets of clothes on hand for victims.
“Your apartment is so nice,” Midoriya whispers in genuine awe. Awe, for Shouta’s shoebox of an apartment.
Shouta finds himself seized by a sudden, unexpected desperation to know exactly what the environment Midoriya had grown up in was like. He wants to know how the cult that Midoriya had escaped from piled his bed high with the most comfortable pillows imaginable, yet didn’t let him have a single window through which to view the outside world. He wants to know how empty the rooms were. Wants to know how quiet every hallway was.
Shouta hadn’t gone with the task force assigned to raid the cult’s main compound after Midoriya had given them its location, though now he wishes he had, if only to see.
But… if he had gone, then there would have been no one to watch over Midoriya. The boy would be alone and vulnerable in a cold police precinct, instead of here, crouching by Shouta’s space heater and poking with interest at the buttons on it.
He had volunteered for this. Out of every officer, every hero, Shouta had volunteered. So Midoriya’s present, not his past, is Shouta’s responsibility now.
Shouta clenches his fists, and releases his frustration in a tight breath through his teeth to get it out of his system, before he goes over to Midoriya. “You might burn yourself if you aren’t careful,” he says, kneeling down beside the boy. “This is the power button. When pressed, it heats up the metal inside, and a fan blows the hot air out to make the room warmer.”
Midoriya listens with rapt attention. As if Shouta is telling him the instructions for how to alchemically transmute gold, rather than just how to power a clunky little piece of technology that Shouta has had for years. It doesn’t even work right anymore. Shouta is pretty sure one of the fans is jammed.
Shouta’s mouth goes dry. He shifts away from the space heater, and Midoriya, of course, follows him.
To Midoriya, Shouta has all the answers to every mystery of the universe, and something about having the boy’s intense green eyes pinned on him makes Shouta feel like he’s being flayed alive.
Why did he think he could handle this? Why didn’t he leave Midoriya to someone else and go on the raid?
“How about we get up off the floor and eat something,” he says, just to get them both moving again. The boy has already spent too much of his short life waiting in place, forced into stagnation by those controlling him.
He’s smaller than any sixteen year old should be, purposefully kept weak and thin, though Midoriya wouldn’t know it. His size makes him easy to catch, if he ever decided that sitting still and being worshiped wasn't for him.
Midoriya’s eyes shine in eagerness as he takes Shouta’s hand and lets the man pull him to his feet. “What are we going to eat? Can I help make it?”
His robes drip down like thick sheets of water as he rises, made of layers upon layers of heavy dyed fabric, and with so many intricate, dangling parts. Shouta’s mind immediately fills with horrible visions of Midoriya’s long strings of gold jewelry getting tangled in the stand mixer’s ruthless spin, or of the hanging, knotted tassels catching fire over the stove. A single ruby earring getting stuck and yanked could take Midoriya's whole ear.
“Change your clothes and you can,” Shouta says.
Midoriya freezes, then visibly wilts with a small, disappointed smile. “I’ll just watch then.”
Shouta makes a frustrated sound, and runs his hand through his hair in a quick, aggravated motion. “No, Midoriya, I didn’t mean– Let me just find you something to wear,” he amends.
Midoriya trails after him as Shouta heads for his bedroom, an edge of uncertainty to his curiosity now. He hovers in the doorway, shifting back and forth nervously on his small feet, as Shouta tears through his closet and tosses articles of clothing around haphazardly.
Eventually, Shouta emerges with an outfit for Midoriya; the bright pink sweatpants Hizashi had bought him as a joke, and an old UA shirt from his highschool days he had forgotten he still had. Hopefully these should fit the thin boy.
Midoriya takes the clothes with so much reverence and gratitude, his eyes wide as he runs his fingers over the soft, time-worn fabric and the crumbling UA logo.
The shirt smells thickly of dust. The pants are wrinkled.
“Thank you,” Midoriya says after a moment, giving Shouta a beaming smile. The boy scampers off to the bathroom to change, leaving Shouta standing in the middle of his room and feeling faintly sick.
He takes just one moment more to collect himself, then goes to start making their meal.
Midoriya rejoins Shouta in the kitchen almost twenty minutes later, and Shouta has to do a double-take when the boy initially walks in. With his face bare of makeup and the long robes gone, Midoriya looks painfully young. Clusters of faded freckles cover his hollow cheeks, and where his eyes had been made larger and sharper by the severe dark lines of his eyeliner, now they’re just round and soft, lined only by the tired purple bags beneath them. Even though they remain a bright, vibrant shade of green, somehow the color feels more grounded now. It fits in with the rest of Midoriya’s palette, rather than glowing supernaturally against white face paint.
His clothes are a different story. They definitely do not fit. The drawstring of the pants is pulled as tight as it can be around Midoriya’s narrow waist, and the shirt hangs loosely off of him, still a touch too big on his shoulders, exposing collarbones and pale skin that has never seen the sun.
Shouta frowns, and his grip on the spoon he’s holding tightens. He hates to admit it even to himself, but he had been scrawny back in highschool. Yet somehow, Midoriya is even smaller.
“Sorry I took a while,” Midoriya apologizes, slight blush on his cheeks as he bashfully scratches the back of his neck. “It took so long to get everything off! Takemi-san always used to dress and undress me, I had no idea there were so many ties and folds to work through.”
Midoriya says it offhandedly, clearly thinking nothing of his statement. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with being a teenager and still having someone dress him each day, as if he were a doll. Even the most basic of tasks had been taken out of his hands.
Shouta doesn’t ask where Midoriya put his discarded robes.
Of course, Midoriya doesn’t notice the way Shouta has paused, nor the disturbed expression on the man’s face. Clueless, he leans in close, peering over Shouta’s arm to see what is being cooked.
“What is that? It looks so good!” Midoriya gasps.
Shouta looks back down at the simple mix of meat and vegetables he’s been pushing around in oil.
“Stir fry,” he answers flatly, mechanically returning to poking and stirring the familiar meal. If he lets himself say anything else, he knows he’ll say something he’ll regret.
“Is there anything I can do?”
With a small motion of his head, Shouta gestures to the rice cooker. “You can get the rice started. You just have to pour in two cups of rice, and then four cups of water.”
He watches subtly out of the corner of his eye as Midoriya looks at the cooker with wide-eyed confusion, then approaches it like it’s a wild animal.
“There’s no fancy settings. Just pour the rice and water in and flip the switch.”
Midoriya still looks out of his element, but he dutifully measures the rice and water. A moment later, the rice cooker is humming away, without anything having blown up.
“Good job,” Shouta says.
Two little words, just the barest form of praise, but they make Midoriya’s breath hitch quietly.
“Uhm, thank you…”
Midoriya’s small voice trails off into a warm silence, one that lasts until Shouta is finished frying everything and the rice cooker dings to announce its completion. He spoons the mixture into the rice and stirs it all together, then heaps a generous portion into a bowl that he slides Midoriya’s way.
They sit down at Shouta’s low table, folding their knees beneath themselves. At first Midoriya nibbles at the food. He approaches it slowly, with small and unsure mouse-like bites, before he finally puts an entire piece of meat into his mouth. Shouta watches the boy’s expression melt into one of delight, and after that, there’s no stopping Midoriya from wolfing down the rest of what is in his bowl and reaching for seconds.
“Slow down,” Shouta cuts in, quickly blocking Midoriya’s hungry hands. Midoriya looks betrayed and hurt for only a moment, before he obediently begins to withdraw. “You can have more, I just don’t want you to make yourself sick.”
When Shouta removes his hand, Midoriya eyes him hesitantly, before he reaches out again and serves himself more food. It isn’t a full portion, just barely half of the bowl. But when Midoriya glances nervously at him, Shouta nods in approval.
The two of them fall into a stable rhythm after that, both eating the rest of their food slowly, taking their time to savor the flavors and enjoy the comfortable pocket of space they’re in.
For a moment, Shouta thinks that maybe he will be able to do this. He’s had tougher missions, gone through worse things, than having to take care of a traumatized teenager for just a short while.
And then Midoriya asks softly, “When all of this is over, where will I go?”
It takes Shouta so much more effort than it should to swallow the bite of rice that had been in his mouth when Midoriya spoke. The food feels like a stone, heavy and rough, tearing at the inside of his throat as it slides down to drop into his gut. “Well, we’ll first try to locate any family members you may have. They would have proprietary over guardianship of you.”
Midoriya doesn’t seem pleased with the answer. He bites his lip, and sets his chopsticks down so he can fold his hands neatly in his lap. He isn’t even finished eating, but he doesn’t seem to realize that. In his nerves he’d surrendered easily to the habitual motion, and right before Shouta’s eyes, Midoriya transforms from a young boy into a statuesque idol.
His ears ring, and Shouta can almost hear the kinds of commands that must have been given to Midoriya, over and over again, to drill such a stiff and unnatural pose into him until it became second-nature. A default role to hide in when things went wrong. Sit up straight. Keep your hands in your lap just like that. Do not look anyone in the eye. Stay quiet. Let us tell you all about what a marvel you are, while you keep your breathing shallow and soft.
He’s moving before he realizes it, standing from his own seat, stepping around the table, and crouching by Midoriya’s side. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Shouta says, reaching out. “Midoriya, don’t close yourself off. What don’t you like about that?”
He doesn’t try to take Midoriya’s hand, just hooks a gentle grip around the boy’s elbow, and Midoriya trembles at the touch.
“What if they don’t want me?” the boy says at length, voice hushed and low. It takes another long pause for him to continue, but that’s alright. Shouta will wait all night. “I’ve thought about it before, my family I mean. I don’t remember anything from when I was really little very well, so I always wondered–” Midoriya’s lip wobbles. “–if they gave me away. After I was diagnosed as quirkless.”
What can Shouta say to that? What can he possibly say to that? No one has had the time to look into Midoriya’s background or family history at all yet. All the focus of the task force has thus far been aimed at verifying the intel Midoriya gave them and then raiding the cult. Shouta doesn’t even know if Midoriya Izuku is the boy’s actual name.
Midoriya sucks in a shuddering breath, and his voice cracks. “What if I’m all alone in the world now?”
Thankfully, Shouta knows what to say to that.
“You’re not.”
Midoriya looks up at him with glassy, red-rimmed eyes.
“The cult kept you isolated and alone, but kid, I promise you, we’ll find you a place where you belong,” Shouta says, with the most conviction and confidence he can.
Midoriya’s breath hitches again, once, twice, before he collapses inwards. He folds over, bowing his head over the bowl in front of him, and holds onto Shouta’s wrist with a deathgrip like nothing else.
Through it all, he is quiet, only gasping loudly because he can’t seem to stop himself. Everything about his body language reads as someone still trying to make themselves small and tuck themselves away, so as to not take up any more space than necessary. Like a toy designed to fit perfectly in its place on the shelf, and never deviate.
Shouta sits there, letting Midoriya hold onto him for as long as the boy needs. If Hizashi or any of his class were to see him he knows he’d never hear the end of it, but right now, Shouta doesn’t really care about any of that.
That night, after Midoriya calms down and they clear the dishes from the table, Shouta shoves Midoriya gently down onto the couch and then drops his laptop in the boy’s lap.
Midoriya stares at the laptop with his hands raised cautiously away from it, like it might bite him. “Is this… a computer?”
Shouta nods, ignoring the painful twang in his chest. Keeping the boy isolated and ignorant had definitely been a tactic the cult used to keep him dependent on them, and Shouta knows this. He has already established to himself that Midoriya knows painfully little about the world, so he really doesn’t need to get heartsick about it every time the boy’s inexperience becomes obvious. “Yes, it is.”
“It’s so small,” Midoriya whispers, as he picks up Shouta’s laptop and rotates it in the air, examining it from all angles. “I think I remember watching a video or something on a computer when I was little, but the screen was bigger than this, and it had to stay on the desk.”
“That was a desktop computer,” Shouta says as he sits down next to Midoriya. “They usually have more power and storage than small laptops like mine.”
Midoriya blinks at him, utterly confused.
Shouta sighs. “Just open it up, we’re going to get started right now on teaching you about the world.”
Immediately Midoriya perks up, and his eyes shine with excitement. He pries the laptop open, and then Shouta has to take the wheel for a while, showing an impatient Midoriya how to navigate through all the icons and pull up the search engine.
He hadn’t expected the boy to be this hungry for knowledge, but Midoriya is practically salivating as Shouta sets everything up.
“What do I do now?” Midoriya asks eagerly, when Shouta passes the laptop back to him. He stares at the tiny blinking cursor in the search bar with his fingers braced above the keyboard, raring to go.
Face lit by the blue light of the screen, Midoriya looks paler than ever, but Shouta can see warmth and life pouring back into this boy in front of him. His soul is growing stronger with each passing second, picking up energy and passion like a snowball rolling downhill.
With a fond smile – just a small and fleeting upwards tick of his lips, that Shouta hides by burying his face in his capture scarf – he sits back, and lets Midoriya take control.
“Well, now you have access to all the information you could ever want. So what do you want to learn about first?”
The words are like the trigger of a gun, and with a bang, Midoriya is off.
Shouta watches over the boy’s shoulder as Midoriya cycles first through current events, then falls down the rabbit hole of hero rankings. It leads him to the websites of gossip magazines and the blogs of hobby hero analyzers, then to conspiracy theorists, and onwards deeper into the depths of the internet with the weirdos who dwell there. Shouta doesn’t do or say a thing, content to sit back and allow Midoriya the freedom to carve out his own path. He’s not going to try and curate what Midoriya learns, but Shouta has to admit that he’s surprised Midoriya didn't begin his journey by looking up himself and his cult.
It isn't like there wouldn't be any results. Everyone knows about the cult that worships quirkless people, and their child "deity" that they had kept hidden from the world.
“A god speaks through him to us,” is a statement from one of the leaders that Shouta remembers reading in a news article. “He tells us what the world should be like. He tells us the world should be pure.”
Yet here that child deity is, sitting on Shouta's couch, getting caught up in hero stats.
Midoriya needs an escape right now. Shouta is hardly going to judge him for that.
After checking one more time to see if Midoriya's whole focus is truly submerged deep in the web, Shouta decides to take the opportunity to rest his eyes and doze for a while. He has no clue when Tsukauchi and the other heroes will get back in contact with him, but he figures he’ll have at least a few minutes before anything urgently needs his attention or assistance.
With Midoriya's soft mumbling and gentle clicking, it is embarrassingly easy for Shouta to drift into sleep.
But he's woken up what feels like only seconds later, by an insistent jabbing in his side. Shouta snaps his eyes open, but doesn't move yet, not until he sees Midoriya’s face – pale as bone, washed out completely from the light of the laptop against the darkness of the surrounding room – come into view.
Quickly shaking off the last dregs of sleep that cling to his heavy eyelids, Shouta then pushes himself up and reaches for the lamp beside the couch. He clicks it on, to reveal the small boy trembling beside him. "What's wrong?"
Midoriya chews on his lip, then holds the open laptop out to Shouta with trembling hands. “T-This is me,” he whispers.
Shouta’s focus flickers between the screen and Midoriya’s shaken expression, before he takes the device and really looks.
There, right in front of him, is a familiar-looking child with a dark mess of curls. Dark freckles span rosy cheeks, and bright green eyes are squinted from the force of his beaming smile. But he's smaller than Shouta knows, and his face is rounder with a toddler-softness.
Printed beneath the picture in bold are the damning words; HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
“Someone looked for me,” Midoriya says, sounding strangled. “Someone wanted me back.”
Shouta checks the date on the poster, and the small numbers, black on searing bright white, burn his eyes.
It was printed twelve years ago.
Midoriya had been four years old. Whoever had been searching for him has probably given up by now. They most likely think he’s dead.
“Can we call the number on it?”
“Midoriya…” Shouta starts, tense. They need to wait until they have more information, Shouta knows they need to wait. He can call Tsukauchi in the morning, or Tsuragamae. Ask them to search for records of Midoriya's missing person report now that they know one exists. Then they can verify the number, and learn who may be on the other end of it.
But even after all that, there's no guarantee that someone will answer.
Midoriya has to have seen the date too. He has to know how slim his chances are.
“Please?” Midoriya pleads, desperate.
Foolishly, Shouta gives in.
At first, after dialing the number into his personal cell phone and hitting the call button, there’s a promising ring in Shouta’s ear.
This lasts for all of five seconds, before the sound cuts with a faint crunch of static, as if bitten off.
“We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service,” the soft robotic voice on the other side of the line says.
“Did anyone answer?” Midoriya asks.
Shouta feels the force of the boy’s hope like a physical blow.
“If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”
Slowly, Shouta lowers the phone from his ear, and hangs up.
Midoriya is already shaking his head when Shouta looks at him. “No, no, please try again?” he begs. “Someone will answer if you call again, I’m sure they will.”
“The number was disconnected,” Shouta says, ripping off the bandaid.
Midoriya flinches away with his whole body.
Then, in a whisper he begins to repeat, “No, no, it’s a mistake, it has to be,” like a desperate mantra.
“Midoriya, there could be any number of reasons for the line to be disconnected,” Shouta tries to comfort, doing his best to soothe the boy the only way he knows how; with logic.
“But why?” Midoriya gasps, a hand winding tightly in his shirt, right over his heart.
Shouta can’t answer that. He’s been finding himself lacking a lot of answers lately, when it comes to Midoriya, and he can’t say he’s enjoying it.
“C’mon,” he says at length, stretching out a hand to Midoriya. “Don’t think about this anymore tonight, you need to sleep.”
Midoriya’s eyes find Shouta’s hand slowly. He takes that hand with motions even slower. Gently, Shouta pulls Midoriya into standing, and the boy follows with stiff, doll-like motions, as if his body isn’t his own.
It’s almost frightening, the way Midoriya oh so easily falls into such a catatonic state and lets Shouta move him. Just a little bit ago, Midoriya had almost been happy. One failed phone call stole the light from his eyes again, and right now, Shouta isn’t able to come up with any ideas for how to get it back. He isn’t good at this; at comforting people, or saying the right thing. He’s known for expelling kids without a second thought and being unmoved by their tears. He’s known for swinging in on his capture weapon, grabbing the bad guy, and disappearing back into the night without a word.
But when Midoriya leans against him like Shouta is the only thing holding him up, Shouta wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders without a second thought.