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Chapter Text

...

It is several months into their first year at UA, and several weeks into Yamada Hizashi's attempts to befriend Aizawa Shouta, who recently won the sports festival and transferred himself into both the hero course and Yamada's heart.

"Where do you live?" Shouta asks. It is one of the first times Aizawa has initiated conversation between the two of them, but it is also one of the first times Aizawa has noticed something strange about Yamada Hizashi. (Stranger than his cheerful personality, loud demeanor, and determination to befriend Shouta, anyway)

"Hmm?" Shouta's new...friend blinks at him. (Friend? Aizawa doesn't think he's ever had one of those before...)

"You've been walking me home straight up to my doorstep every day after school for the last week, but I'm pretty sure you don't live around this neighborhood." Shouta grumbled, tilting his head forward until his hair half covered his face. "It would be illogical to walk me home every day if you don't live around here."

"Oh. Oh, no." Yamada laughs sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. "My father arranges for me to be warped home every day. I can get home instantly from wherever I want."

"Ah." Shouta blinked. "That's a pretty rare quirk." He comments slowly, for lack of anything better to say. He fidgets with the strap of his bag as he walks down the sidewalk. Yamada doesn't seem bothered by the silence, only hums once at the comment and keeps smiling at Shouta as they walk along. Shouta clears his throat. "So I assume your quirk is from your mother's side, then?"

"Ah...ha, I'm adopted, actually." Yamada says, more awkwardly this time, smile dimming a little. Shouta side eyes him wearily from between strands of hair. Yamada renews his smile with genuine warmth and straightens his back. "My adopted father is great though! You should come over and meet him sometime!"

They come to a stop at the gate to Shouta's tiny yard, as they have every day for the last week. And as every day for the last week, Shouta awkwardly fails to invite Hizashi in, and Hizashi is determinedly smiling and determinedly staving off awkwardness. They hover like that, ever on the edge of...something.

Shouta turns to head up the walk and inside without any attempt to make a goodbye, anticipating Hizashi squeaking in outrage and whining about his lack of manners, as has become their custom. Yamada does call out for him to stop, but instead of the half exaggerated lecture on manners, (and manners that require Shouta to interact with Hizashi specifically), the blond instead leads with...

"Wait!" Yamada waves his arms wildly as if to get Shouta's attention, even though Shouta is facing in completely the opposite direction. Luckily for Yamada, Shouta turns at his shout anyway.

"Yes?" Shouta says, deadpan in the face of Hizashi's excited histrionics. 

"Do you want to see it?" Hizashi asks, smiling goofily at him from behind his thick, square frame glasses.

Shouta sighs, but decides to take the plunge. "See what?" He dins to ask.

"My warp home!" Hizashi exclaims like it's obvious, bouncing on his toes. "It looks pretty cool from the outside!" 

"Hmm." Shouta deliberates, feigning indifference. "I suppose..."

"Cool!" Yamada almost squeals with sparkling eyes, before digging a chain necklace out of his shirt from around his neck, from which hangs a large, plain metal bead with a seam down the middle. Yamada holds the bead between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands poised, he grins and bounces on his toes again. "Are you ready?" He asks, wiggling.

"...I suppose." Shouta replies, gripping the strap of his bag with one hand and eyeing the crazy blond wearily.

There was another moment of anticipation, where Yamada wiggled with his eyes locked on Shouta's face, and Shouta stared. Finally, Shouta stated blandly, "Well?"

"Weeeeeeelllllll..." Yamada drew it out, looking up at the sky thoughtfully, shoulders wilting a little. "I just realized that I won't be able to see your reaction. Because I'll be teleporting."

"How terrible." Shouta deadpanned.

"I know, right?" Yamada lamented, fiddling with his necklace. Another beat of silence passed.

"Well?" Shouta asked, sweatdropping with exasperation. "Are you going to do it?"

"Yes!" Yamada snapped to reassure quickly. "Just give me a moment!"

Yamada continued to grin goofily at Shouta. Shouta continued to stare blankly back with the void vibrating behind him.

Shouta finally raised his eyes to the heavens and exhaled sharply. "Go, loudmouth!" He says exasperatedly.

"Ok!" Yamada says cheerfully. "Goodbye, Shouta!"

"I'll see you in class tomorrow, Yamada san." Shouta stated blandly.

Yamada bounced on his toes and waved one arm quickly.

Shouta sluggishly raised the arm not gripping his bag and waved his fingers slowly up and down twice.

"Alright, for real this time...! Goodbye!" Yamada said, then decisively twisted the two halves of his marble with a click. Instantly, reality twisted and snapped; swirling, warping, shrinking down to a marble point and then disappearing with a sound like a gunshot that echoed through the neighborhood. Instantly, five nearby car alarms began screeching, and a nearby stray cat shot out of some bushes and around the corner with it's ears pinned back. Curtains began twitching. Locks began clicking. In the distance, a police siren began to sound, presumably having been near enough to have heard the gunshot-like sound.

Shouta stared at the place Yamada had disappeared from with a thousand yard stare. Slowly, he raised his hand and slapped his face into his palm. "Goddamn it, Yamada." He muttered.

His palm hid the small smile creeping over his face.

...

They were drinking slushies in a local park, seated across from each other at a picnic table. It was halfway through their second year, and also halfway through their fifth date, (it was also the first date which did not take place in a cat cafe), and Shouta Aizawa was still staunchly denying that it was a date, as he had been doing for the last four dates. Eventually, the playful argument wound down into a comfortable silence, until...

"So if this was a date..." Shouta begins slowly. Hizashi almost spits out his drink at what was almost halfway to an admittance from his...friend. "If this was a date...what would your father think about...us."

"Oh, he's totally cool with it!" Hizashi exclaims, grinning. "You are talking about the gay thing, right?"

Now it is Shouta who almost spits out his drink. "Yes." He coughs, blushing. "The...gay thing."

"Nah, my dad is totally cool with it." Hizashi continued grinning. "I mean, he has some...I guess you'd call them coworkers? Or maybe more like living furniture...but anyway, he has some people around that he can't get rid of that are loudly homophobic, but those guys are basically fossils and my dad has all the power over them. If they get too annoying I have his permission to draw mustaches on their faces and scream until their ears bleed."

Shouta blinks at him, slurping loudly through his straw for maximum awkwardness. "Ok." He finally settles on, choosing to ignore everything he just heard. His brows furrowed and he put his drink down. "I just worry sometimes...I know you always say your dad is great, but you get this look on your face sometimes when your adoption comes up..." Shouta glances away. "I just worry sometimes." He grumbles again.

"Oh. Ha, ha..." Hizashi rubs the back of his neck. "No, my dad is great, like I always say-I should really have nothing to complain about; he gave me a really amazing childhood..." Hizashi trailed off, and rested his arms on the table with a sigh. "It just still makes me sad sometimes, to think about what brought me into his care. Did I ever tell you that I was born with my quirk?" He asked, in a seeming non sequitur. "It didn't come in when I was four, like most non mutant type quirks; I came into this world kicking and screaming!"

Shouta winced.

Hizashi smiled sadly. "Yah, that was a lot of people's reaction. I gave my birth parents and the doctors and nurses permanent hearing loss; blew their eardrums out." He laughed sheepishly. "From what I'm told, my birth parents lasted...something like two weeks? Before they gave me up for adoption."

Shouta winced again. "That's illogical." He muttered, glancing away.

"Aw, Sho..." Hizashi leaned forward and cooed, to Shouta's mortification. "Did you just admit it's illogical to get rid of me? I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said about...anyone! Now I know you really love me." Hizashi grinned sappily at him over the rims of his glasses. Shouta blushed and shoved the straw of his long sense empty drink in his mouth and sucked noisily at the dredges to avoid answering.

After fighting his blush back down, Shouta slammed his drink on the table and blatantly changed the subject back. "So your dad adopted you when you were a baby?" He asked, slightly louder than he would usually speak.

"Ah, no." Hizashi leaned back in his seat, grin returning to that awkward, sad thing. "He actually didn't adopt me until I was around four...I was in foster care until then."

Shouta winced. He found himself doing that a lot in this conversation.

"Ahh, it wasn't that bad..." Hizashi gave another awkward laugh. "Or at least, I don't remember it well. Um...I think I was moved around a lot? I remember being in a lot of stranger's houses for the first time, over and over. And I had a...well, in my file it was called a "quirk suppression  device" but they should have had the balls to call it what it was." Shouta accidentally made eye contact with Hizashi in surprise at hearing his...friend swear. Hizashi closed his eyes though and exhaled heavily through his teeth. "It was a muzzle." He stated bluntly.

Shouta jerked his head up and stared, wide eyed.

Hizashi cracked a wan smile. "Making me wear it wasn't considered to be... anything untoward... considering the circumstances. It was recommended by both a doctor and a quirk therapist even, and nobody was afraid to record it in my files, so it wasn't considered to be abuse, and I barely even remember it, so it's not like I'm traumatized or anything, but..." Hizashi let out a sigh, and finally let the smile drop. "Now that I'm older, I just think about...I picture like, say-that kid, over there, being in that situation...wearing a fucking muzzle... and... I don't know. It just makes me angry and sad. Like, on behalf of little me."

Shouta stared at Hizashi across the table, hardly daring to breath. Hizashi only stared off in the direction of the random kid he had pointed out, face propped up by his fist and eyes distant. Shouta stiffly turned to follow his gaze, giving the kid a look longer than a glance this time. He was... maybe three? Four? Chubby cheeked and stumbly legged, playing in the grass while his mom watched from nearby. Shouta stretched a muscle he didn't often use these days-his imagination. He reimagined that little kid with blond hair and green eyes. Then he added a muzzle to the image... what would a human muzzle look like? It would have to be different from the kind for dogs, right? On dogs it was to stop biting; in this case it would be to stop the kid from making sound. It would be leather probably, right? It would have to cover the entire lower half his face and wrap around the back of his head as well. Shouta pictured this on the imaginary child/Hizashi. It would look almost look like a mask, right? But it would be pretty uncomfortable after a while, wouldn't it? How much of the day would Hizashi have been required to wear it? They couldn't have made him sleep in it, right? But then, children were prone to the occasional nightmare, weren't they? Especially children with no stable home, and children who woke from nightmares cried loudly, didn't they? 

Quite beyond his control, the imaginary child/Hizashi began silently crying in a manner that was very unlike the way the living, breathing one at his side cried (that is to say, the real one cried loudly, and with great dramatics). Child Hizashi's big, green eyes watered at him, begging for help.

Shouta felt a pain in his palm, and he realized he had been clenching his hands too hard. His jaw as well; Shouta slowly forced himself to relax as his imagination faded and the happy child playing in the sun came back to the forefront. Shouta turned his attention back to his friend across the table to find him still staring dully at the scene of the mother and son across the park. Before he knew it, Shouta was moving, closing the distance and sliding into place on the bench next to Hizashi, who jolted in surprise and turned to look at him with big, green eyes. Shouta refused to meet his gaze, but under the table his leg lined up with Hizashi's as he threw himself down; foot pressed against foot, calve pressed against calve, knee against knee. Shouta lay one arm down on the top of the picnic table and pillowed his head on it, slouching down into the half asleep pose he often adopted in class with half lidded eyes. And with his other hand...

Shouta was not blushing. He was not. He was only hiding his face in his arm because this date was boring him and he was falling asleep. It had nothing whatsoever to do with...

Shouta shook off the thought, then mumbled to address the shocked silence to his right. "I'm the only one allowed to make you shut you up now, ok?" Wait, no; did that come out right? It probably came across as creepy. Shouta was just going to keep his face buried in his arm and his eyes closed forever.

Hizashi, who Shouta had failed to notice was turning a delightful shade of red, was still staring down in shock at where Shouta had boldy wrapped his right pinky finger around Hizashi's left under the table. (or rather, where Shouta had timedly chickened out of going in for a full hand hold) 

Hizashi swallowed thickly.

It was then that Yamada Hizashi had an epiphany; this was the second time he he had this particular epiphany, (the first time being when Shouta had stood over him, triumphant at the sports festival in first year, and then reached down and offered him his sweaty hand up), but this epiphany was accompanied by a second one.

First: Hizashi was in so much trouble right now.

Second: Hizashi was going to marry Aizawa Shouta one day, come hell or high water.

Chapter Text

There had been other clues throughout the years that Yamada Hizashi's home life wasn't quite as average as the average UA student's.

...

"Happy Birthday, Kayama!" Hizashi trilled as he snuck up behind their friend as they walked onto campus that day. He dropped her present in her hands before she could jump in surprise, and then stood vibrating in excitement beside her as she opened it with some bemusement on her face while Shouta rolled his eyes and continued walking.

Kayama tore the wrapping paper off and found that it was a mirror. An ornately engraved, silver framed, hand held mirror.

"Oh my." Kayama muttered, too stunned to crack a sex joke for once, as she held it up to catch her reflection. "It's beautiful." She said.

Her reflection sneered at her. "I wish I could say the same, darling." Kayama made a full body twitch and stared as the mirror spoke to her in a french accent. "Please tell me that's a uniform you're wearing, because if you put that thing on of your own volition, we're going to be having some words."

Kayama screamed and chucked the mirror off into the nearby grass. Hizashi burst out gawfing. Shouta whirled around to look back at the two with some alarm and confusion, as did several passing strangers.

"What the hell was that?!" Shouta heard Kayama screech, as he slowly started to make his way back to his friends. "Did anybody else see that?! Was I just hallucinating?! Hizashi you ass! Stop laughing!" Kayama was gripping the hair on the sides of her head and switching her disbelieving stare between the mirror, which was laying facedown on the ground and making muffled sounds of offence, and Hizashi, who was gripping his sides and dying of laughter.

Shouta squinted at Hizashi suspiciously as he sidled passed to go pick up the mirror from the grass. The black haired future erasure hero held the mirror up with a grimace and eyed his reflection suspiciously. His reflection eyed him right back. "Oh honey..." It said mockingly, still in that female, french accent. "I know life on the streets can be hard, but you have friends who care about you, and you can't be too proud to ask for help. I'm sure Hizashi would be willing to invite you over for dinner and borrow a shower while you're there every once in a while. Have you tried talking to one of your teachers about your situation? I know it may not look like it, but sometimes there are one or two of them who would care."

There was a beat of near silence, interrupted only by Hizashi desperately holding his hand over his mouth to stifle the snorts of laughter, while Shouta stared at his reflection blankly. "Hizashi." He said monotonously. "Did this mirror just tell me I look like a homeless person?"

Hizashi lost it. Kayama stared at the mirror, open mouthed. The mirror could faintly be heard saying, "Are you not a homeless person?" in a dangerously calm tone of voice.

Shouta started walking back to the others, tuning out the mirror's commentary in favor of glaring at it with his quirk active, eyes glowing red and hair whipping around dangerously as he stalked back to the sidewalk. The mirror appeared to have changed topics in the time sense Shouta had actually been listening to it.

"-with hair that long you want to make long, even strokes, staring from the roots and following through all the way to the tips; you want to distribute the oil in your hair evenly throughout..." Shouta's reflection had pulled an old fashioned wooden comb out of...somewhere, and was using it to demonstrate proper hair care technique. Hizashi and Kayama glued themselves to either side of him as he walked up and peered over his shoulder to watch with some interest as Shouta's reflection smiled and tilted it's head and made carefully poised gestures possessing of a graceful, demure nature the real Shouta had never and would never replicate. "-not need to worry about that pink eye you have, I can give you the recipe of a potion that will take care of that right quick, and until then I can show you the wand motions for a good color changing charm that's safe to use on eyes-"

"Huh." Kayama eventually said, squinting at the changes to Shouta's reflection from over his shoulder. "You know what Sho? You actually clean up kind of nice. I'm starting to see why Hizashi digs you."

Shouta only scowled at her and shrugged her off from hanging on him while Hizashi laughed.

...

Kayama, of course, and later Shirakumo as well, both ended up loving the "AI assistant". Only after Kayama eventually came to terms with it's unapologetic rudeness, of course. ("She called me a witch, Hizashi! A witch! She's the one always going on about the use of flubber worms in beauty products!") While Shirakumo also of course loved the mirror because of it's rudeness. The "AI's" strange, witch theamed "programing" was chalked up to a joke, a jab at Kayma's personality, perhaps; though somehow no one ever got around to asking Hizashi to confirm that theory, and Hizashi himself never dissuaded the assumption, only hiding his grin behind his hand when the topic came up. 

There were other things besides the mirror too, over the years. The bright yellow, venetian blind lined goggles Hizashi got Shouta for his own birthday, which although ugly as sin, also allowed him to see in the dark, which the ever logical Shouta had to admit would be useful for an underground hero who depended heavily on his eyes. There was also the big, clunky, three hundred year old polaroid camera Hizashi brought out for special occasions, which could nevertheless print gifs of photos on the spot. And one must not forget the ugly, stout little wooden antique radio Hizashi always brought with him on the week long summer training camps, which he claimed could pick up radio stations from other dimensions, much to the derision of their classmates and the mild skepticism of their friends. 

(When Shouta asked, Hizashi said that his father claimed that, "It just works better that way.", when asked why all of these things looked to be at least three hundred years old, at a minimum.)

Shouta eventually came to suspect that Hizashi's dad was not, in fact, a support tech god as the rest of their friends speculated, but rather that his quirk allowed him to-for lack of a better way of putting it-give quirks to inanimate objects. Or as Hizashi put it if he slipped in conversation, to "enchant" objects.

...

It was the first day of their third and final year at UA, and four friends lay in the grass of a distant training field, enjoying some cloud watching after a long and otherwise productive first day of the year. 

Kayama was stretched out on her stomach a little away from the group, legs idly kicking behinds her while she focused more on her phone than on the game. Hizashi was laying on his back next to Shouta, waving his arms and pointing and exclaiming loudly after all the shapes he claimed to able to see in the clouds. Shirakumo, on Hizashi's other side, was cheating blatantly while he snickered at Shouta's boyfriend's antics. Shouta hadn't been aware you could cheat at cloud watching, until he had met Shirakumo. Shouta himself was dozing lightly with his eyes closed, listening to his friends bickering contentedly.

Talk eventually turned to their plans to open a hero agency after graduation, and Shouta's mind perked up a bit to listen.

"There's just one problem with that idea..." Kayama sighed, resting her cheek on her palm.

"Where are we going to get the start up money for our own hero practice?" Shirokumo sighed.

"Nonsense! That's the easiest part!" Hizashi shot up in a sitting position with a smile. "I'll just ask my dad for the money!"

The others slowly turned to look at him. It was Shouta who broke the silence.

"Zashi...does your dad have that kind of money?" He asked slowly, brows furrowed.

"Of course!" Hizashi blinked down at him. "Have I really never mentioned that my dad is...kind of rich?"

"No." Shouta muttered dully from the background, while Shirakumo's jaw dropped.

Kayama narrowed her eyes at him. "Like...how rich are we talking here, Hizashi? Because there's rich, and then there's rich rich, and you need to be rich rich to singlehandedly fund the start up of a new hero agency."

"Are you sure you're not...underestimating how much this would cost?" Shouta sounded out delicately, head turned to eye Hizashi wearily.

Shirakumo had sat up as well, and was squinting at Hizashi. "Yah, you gotta be over exaggerating, drama queen! There's a reason that not every hero off the street starts their own agency!"

"And the ones that do, have to do have to get pretty popular first, and do some heavy sucking up to their backers, multiple backers, and they have to sell their bodies for money." Kayama said, stretching languidly.

"Image!" Shirakumo squeaked out loudly. "She means they sell their image for money!"

"Luckily, as an underground hero, I won't have to deal with things like that." Shouta mumbled, closing his eyes again and tilting his head back to catching rays from the sun.

Shirakumo snorted. "Yah, but as an underground hero, you're also never gonna make the kind of money you need to open your own agency."

A slow smile spread across Kayama's face. "You know..." she purred, "-depending on how rich Yamada's daddy is, he might not need to make all that much money, as long as they stay together after high school."

Shirakumo gasped dramatically. "Shouta!" He exclaimed. "Was that your secret plan all along? Seduce poor Hizashi into making you his trophy husband?!"

"Wait, Hizashi..." Kayama turned to the now baffled blond, grinning, "Does that make you Shouta's sugar daddy?" Kayama asked, leaning forward invasively to peer intently at the future voice hero's face for any tells.

Shirakumo leaned forward as well, mirroring Kayama. "This is important, Hizashi, we need to know..." His grin widened. "...who always pays on your dates?"

Shouta had finally shot up into a sitting position as well, and was sputtering at them. "We split the bill!" He blurted out, blushing. "He's not my sugar daddy." He tacked on sullenly at the end, lowering his voice with horror as he said the last two words.

Hizashi grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at Shouta. "I would totally be your sugar daddy, baby."

Shouta's entire face turned red, and he ducked down to hide his blush in his capture scarf, which he had taken to wearing everywhere, now that he had his provisional license and enough skill not to immediately embarrass himself with it. Shouta huffed in an attempt to disguise his embarrassment. "I hate all of you." He said in a near monotone.

"Aw!" Hizashi leaned forward and wrapped an arm around his boyfriend's shoulders, pulled Shouta into his side to plant an unabashed kiss on top of his head. "We love you too, Sho!"

And for just a little while longer, on that bright and sunny day, they were happy.

...

But of course, in this world-

All Things Must End.

Even, or even especially, the good things.