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Chapter Text

It took a while for Bakugou to wake up after he and Icy Hot had gotten kidnapped by those lousy villains at the training camp. 

Now Bakugou may have been brash but he wasn’t stupid. No one had noticed he was awake yet, so he took in as much of his surroundings and his situation as he could. 

He was in a dingy bar. The lights were flickering annoyingly and buzzing, a couple already busted. They were simply lightbulbs on strings. Handsy was on a red bar stool in front of a bar, talking to the portal villain from the USJ. There were no other villains there at the moment. Not that that was going to do much with how heavily restrained he was. At least the chair they’d strapped him to with quirk cancelling cuffs was pretty comfortable. There was a television to his right and some sofas. He furrowed his eyebrows when he noted the absence of Icy Hot in the room. 

The door swung open with a bang, three people walking in. He looked up, immediately locking eyes with the scarred villain from the camp. The man grinned, stitches pulling creepily and threatening to come off his skin at the movement. One even popped out. 

“Well well the little hero is awake,” the man drawled, voice low and gruff. 

“Shiggy you didn’t notice, did you?” one of the figures he didn’t recognise asked. 

She looked like she was around his age. Her skin was extremely pale, her eyes were light red, and her hair was shock white. Albino, he thought, shoving down the voice that pointed out he sounded like fucking Deku. His skin crawled as he watched spiders lazily walk around her skin, realising her hair was more likely spider webs or mixed with some. A smug grin appeared on her face as she watched his eyes dart away from a tarantula that had crawled out from behind her hair and started going down her body. 

“Don’t tell me the winner of the sports festival is afraid of some spiders,” she mocked before turning towards the third figure that was leaning against the wall, half white and half black hair dripping wet. “You seriously lost against him, Duality?”

Heterochromatic eyes met his and Bakugou felt anger flood his veins. 

Icy Hot grinned, putting his arm over the girl’s shoulder and tugging her close. “Appearances to keep up, remember?” he then waved lazily at Bakugou, ignoring the way the explosion teen was starting to grin his teeth. “No hard feeling for holding back I hope? Couldn’t have daddy dearest connecting the fire at the house when I was ten to me. You understand.”

“You fucker! You’re a traitor?!” Bakugou finally broke, wriggling around in his restraints. 

The asshole had the audacity to let go of the girl he was draped over to give him a mock bow. 

“Enough!” Shigaraki snapped, pushing through them to stand in front of the pomeranian teen. “I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve kidnapped you!”

Dabi rolled his eyes. “At least wait until Birdy is here before you do that,” he drawled, looking at his nails before groaning. “Fuck those brats chipped my nailpolish.”

The door opened again, a whirl of red flying in with bags in both arms. Bakugou’s eyes widened as the Number Three Hero, Hawks, casually dropped takeout on the bar counter before turning to the burnt villains with a smug smile.

“Told you not to do them before,” he taunted with a few chirps. He gave Bakugou a one lazy handed wave while using his mouth to tear his glove off his other hand. “You guys do the offer already?” he asked with the glove clenched between his teeth.

“I was going to!” Shigaraki snapped in annoyance, turning back to the frozen captive. “We’d like you to join the League of Villains!” 

“What?!” Bakugou screamed, rage coming back and unfreezing him from the shock of the current situation. “Why would I even join you losers?! I’m going to be number one! I’ll be the best damn hero there ever was!”

“Told you it wasn’t worth it,” Icy Hot grumbled, flopping down on one of the couches with the girl following him. He started absentmindedly braiding her hair, ignoring the spiders that started crawling over him. “You should have grabbed Hitoshi or Izuku.”

“Hah! Of course he didn’t want that quirless Deku-” he stopped as something fuzzy suddenly took up space in his mouth, doubling over as he tried frantically to cough it up. 

It finally fell down on his lap after what felt like hours of choking, and he gulped as he saw that it was a live bright yellow spider. Wide eyes turned to the girl still getting her hair braided, who was looking at him the same way Hobo sensei looked at the entire class at the beginning of the year. With disdain for his existence. 

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Icy Hot said coldly, not even looking up. “Unless you want your lungs filled with a spider nest?” 

Bakugou spluttered while the spider crawled off him and back towards the girl who kicked her leg out so that it could more easily crawl up on her. A small hole appeared near her ankle and it disappeared inside. 

“So you joined the heroes for what?! Your girlfriend?” he snarled, trying to stop his racing heart and defaulting to what he did best. 

Icy Hot just raised a single elbow before snorting. “She’s my sister, asshole.” He tied off the braid before turning towards Shigaraki with a bored expression. “He’s not gonna join and he’s too loud. We’ll be in my room if you need us.”

With that he pulled the girl up and dragged her towards a set of stairs that led deeper into their base, followed by Dabi and Hawks with half of the takeout bags. 

“You’re just going to leave me here?!” Bakugou yelled after the feathered hero, attempting to lunge forward and cutting himself a bit on the restraints. “You’re supposed to be a top hero!”

The man paused, turning a bit before grinning too sharp teeth at him. 

“I never wanted to be a hero. Why would I want to be called the same thing as an abusive asshole and a discriminatory wannabe?” He asked, before walking away without looking back. 

Shigaraki scratched the back of his neck before turning to glare at him. “I’m giving you time to think about my offer. Otherwise I’m sure Sensei will have a use for your quirk. You'd still be useful as a nomu” he threatened, before turning and heading back to the bar.

Chapter Text

“Okay but can you learn things from the taste of someone’s blood?” 

Bakugou was still strapped down to that fucking chair. It’d been a few days since his kidnapping and no one in the league seemed to really care about his presence. Some of them were upstairs, barely coming down. Hands McGee was at the bar again, scratching his neck while he fanboyed over Hobo sensei who was currently on the television giving a press conference about his and Icy Hot’s kidnapping. Lizard was playing some game on a stolen switch. 

Spiders was sitting on the couch braiding Bloodsucker’s hair while Icy Hot sat behind her doing hers. Birdbrain was sitting on Burns lap, eating some raw chicken like it was popcorn while sometimes glancing at the press conference. 

“Yeah, good question. Does Birdy’s blood taste like chicken?” Burns asked with a snort, getting an offended squawk from the man. 

“At least that’ll taste better than your blood! Yours would taste like cigarettes!”

“Sho’s would just be cold so-”

“Pizza delivery!” a shout came from the front door, making all of the villains freeze. 

“Which of you players ordered pizza-” Shigaraki started to ask when the door was kicked open and heroes flooded the bar. 

Hell broke loose in seconds. 

***

All Might was losing. 

There were too many nomus. They’d gotten overrun quickly with how much time it took to take even one down, let alone the fifty that were attacking them. Shouta’s eyes burned with the repeated use of his quirk, a migraine like no other starting to pound and make his vision blur at the edges. 

It wasn’t helped by the fact he was currently staring down his own student. 

Shoto Todoroki, second place winner of the festival, prodigal son of Endeavour. The red in his hair now dyed black as he stood side to side with the fire user from the camp. Hawks was nearby, dueling Best Jeanist with a sharp grin and his feathers sharper than they’d ever seen. 

All Might tried to stand after AFO’s latest hit, staggering in his deflated form and blood pouring from his side. AFO geared up, ready to end the Symbol of Peace. None of them were close enough to reach him. He blinked.

When he reopened his eyes All Might was still standing, staring at… the white haired girl he’d caught a quick glance of before they’d been teleported away by AFO. She was looking down at the man at her feet, her face devoid of any emotion. 

AFO was lying on the floor motionless, his mouth opened in a silent scream. Something was moving under his skin, little bumps traveling down from the top of his head and up to his throat. A leg poked out from the corner of his mouth. Another from one of his nostrils. Then to Shouta’s horror large spiders started crawling out of both slowly, marching down the man’s corpse and making their way towards the girl who was still immobile. Holes opened over her legs that they disappeared inside of. 

Hizashi was thankfully too far to see it. Shouta wasn’t even scared of spiders and even he was creeped out by the way a legion of those tiny crawlers suddenly poured out of the villain’s ears. The girl looked up at All Might, grinning with her mouth wide open to show the spider webs along the inside of her mouth. 

The rest of the League was already escaping, using a nomu as a shield to stop him from deactivating Kurogiri’s quirk. The girl was further away though, jogging towards Todoroki who was waiting for her by the nomu’s side. 

Shouta activated his quirk on instinct. 

The girl faltered, hands going to clutch her own throat as she started gasping, seemingly failing to take in air. He watched as the kid dropped into a ball on the battlefield, clawing at her chest as if trying to desperately force her lungs to work again. She gasped the second Shouta blinked, gulping down air with sobs. 

Todoroki started rushing towards her. Shouta reactivated his quirk, trying to fight down the way hearing the young girl’s panic tore his heart apart. The older teen was screaming, fighting through the bodies of nomus to get to her side. 

“Kids!”

“Get her! Leave her behind!”

“Players!”

“He’s gonna kill her!” 

“Nomu stop him!” 

The nomu in front of the league turned towards him, revealing the rest of the league peering through the portal kept open by Kurogiri. Twice and Magne were holding Toga back tightly as she fought in their hold. Dabi shot a line of fire that burned brighter and deadlier than what he’d seen from the villain before, shielding the kids from his quirk. Hawks' feathers shot towards him. 

Shigaraki’s face was the worst to look at. The young villain looked terrified of him . 

He didn’t get to think. A blink. Multiple screams. 

When he reopened his eyes to use his quirk against them, Kurogiri had already warped them away. The nomu didn’t get a chance to reach him as Hizashi came to his side, a grim expression on his face as he whistled at a frequency that quickly exploded the creature’s brain. 

Shouta took that opportunity to turn towards the two kids that were still there. 

The girl was sobbing, clutching Todoroki tightly. He had his body wrapped around hers to shield her as much as possible, blood running down a cut on his face and into his left eye as he glared at them. The fire burnt as a shield between them, but Backdraft was already rushing towards them. 

It was over. 

“All of the nomus have been disposed of,” Nedzu announced in their earpieces. “Tsukauchi is coming through the barrier to collect the villains.”

Shouta squeezed Hizashi’s hand to ground himself, trying to pretend the panicked sobbing from the girl younger than his students wasn’t making him feel like he was the villain he’d always been told he’d become. 

They stayed there together as they watched Backdraft create a path for them through the flames. Todoroki didn’t use his quirk, eyes still locked on Shouta to prove he wasn’t going to make a move. It made the hero’s heart twist. Tsukauchi’s face was grim as he and Sansa pulled the two apart, Todoroki immediately starting to scream as they locked quirk suppressants on both of their wrists. 

Sansa barely had time to catch the kid as she slumped, eerily still as wide panicked eyes stared blankly. He pressed his paw against the pulse point, his eyes widening and turning towards the medics heading towards Hizashi and Shouta.

“There’s no pulse! We need medics here now!” he yelled, cradling the kid in his large paws.

“You need to get the cuffs off her!” Todoroki screamed, getting dragged back by an exhausted looking Tsukauchi. Camera crews were starting to push past police barriers now that the fight was over, filming the whole thing. He wanted the still recognisable youngest Todoroki away before they could get better shots of him, but the teen was refusing to make it easy. He fought like a cornered animal, teeth bared. He turned towards his former homeroom teacher when he realised no one was listening, tears in his eyes. “Her quirk is what makes up her lungs! You’re going to kill her if you keep the cuffs!”

Hizashi was the first one to move, letting go of Shouta’s and rushing forward despite being close enough to see the spiders that had died and were now lying all over her sweat covered skin. 

“Get those cuffs off her!” he ordered with his full Present Mic voice, the one that made villains pale and that he rarely used around civilians. Or against colleagues.

Todoroki sagged in Tsukauchi’s hold once the cuffs were off, Hizashi helping Sansa tip the girl to her side so that she didn’t choke when she woke up and threw up. She gulped air down again, sobbing as she tried to curl in on herself. Tsukauchi managed to drag Todoroki to his car, but not before the entirety of Japan had a clear shot of his face. 

Every single student of 1A watching the events unfold got to see their classmate getting dragged off into a police car. And the crew of students that were watching from a roof after rescuing Bakugou? They saw it from even closer. Leaving no doubt.

The golden boy of U.A. had betrayed them all. 

Chapter Text

Todoroki was immediately placed inside of an interrogation room. The chief didn’t even send him to see the medic, judging the cut on his face not severe enough to require it. The other villain they’d captured had passed out and was in another interrogation room, supervised by Sansa who was worried about the girl dying in her sleep. 

Todoroki looked up when Shouta, Hizashi, and Tsukauchi walked into the interrogation room. He looked exhausted, sweat and grime clinging to his hair and skin. The cut would get infected if it wasn’t treated, Shouta thought. 

“How is she?” he growled, eyes narrowing at them.

They still all noticed the way his cuffed hands shook where they laid on the table. 

“She’s asleep. Sansa is keeping an eye on her,” Hizashi said softly, taking a seat across from the teen. 

Tsukauchi took the other, leaving Shouta to stand behind them. 

“True,” Tsukauchi confirmed. Todoroki remained silent. Tsukauchi sighed. “Alright we’ll begin the interrogation. This will be recorded. I am also legally obligated to tell you that my quirk allows me to know if someone is telling the truth.” Still no response. Another sigh from the detective. “Okay please state your name, age, and quirk for the record.”

“Todoroki Shoto,” the teen replied coldly. “15. Half Cold Half Hot.”

“True. What is your connection to the League of Villains?”

“I’m one of the core members, I joined when Dabi did.”

“True. And how did you know Dabi?”

“I’m not answering that question. Figure it out yourselves.”

Shouta grit his teeth. Tsuakuchi groaned but accepted it for now. 

“Why did you join the League of Villains?”

“Do you really need it spelt out for you?” Todoroki asked, glaring at them now with disdain. 

“Todoroki-”

“Stop calling me that,” the teen snarled, standing up and leaning over the table. “Call me Duality or Shoto, but don’t use his name to address me.” He leaned back, turning to glare at Shouta. “You pushed me to use my fire. Told me I was wasting my potential. Going to get innocent people killed. For someone who preaches that quirks are just tools you were really insistent on me using mine. And you never asked yourself why I didn’t want anything to do with my fucking fire. A school of so-called pro heroes and heroes to be but because I’m a Todoroki you’re all suddenly too blind to notice the burns? The long sleeves? The wincing, the bruises, the fact that my mother poured boiling water over my eye ?!”

“True,” Tsukauchi said quietly, looking down at the notepad in his hands. 

“Oh so now it’s true?! Not when Touya tried to get help at this exact police station before I was even born? Not when you were all letting Endeavour call me his masterpiece whenever he opened his fucking mouth? No, it's now when you’ve arrested me for being part of the only group that understood what it was like to get spit on by the people you’re supposed to worship on your knees.” The teen laughed, leaning back. “I’m not talking to you anymore. Get out and come back when you’ve decided to take me to Tartarus so Endeavour can bury the stain on his image like he did with Touya.”

“Actually!” The vent above opened, Nedzu dropping down on the table. The principal dusted off his suit, a cheerful smile on his face. “I just got done talking to the Commission. They have approved my idea for a rehabilitation program at U.A.. So you have the choice between Tartarus or attending U.A. still as a student. Of course you’ll be monitored and living with one of the teachers on campus instead of the dorms that are being established-”

“Is that offer just for me or is it being extended to Arenea?” Todoroki Shoto interrupted. 

Nedzu didn’t stop smiling, though it became a bit more genuine. “It applies to both of you, should you both choose to accept it.”

There was a long pause. The teen stared at the principal with narrowed eyes, looking him up and down before sighing. “If you convince her, then I’ll be a part of your stupid program,” he relented. “But don’t expect me to play nice or pretend Endeavour is a perfect hero,” he added with a growl. 

“I do expect you both to attempt to make connections and leave behind villainy. It is a rehabilitation program afterall, and if it succeeds for you both I may even be able to convince the Commission to let adults enroll in it if their crimes were let’s say… heavily influenced by society’s failures,” Nedzu’s tail swished a bit on the table. “As for Endeavour he won’t have any contact with you or information on you. And I will do my best to launch an investigation on the man.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shoto said with an eyeroll, clearly not believing it. 

The first three left shortly after that, leaving Nedzu to iron out some of the details of the offer while they conducted their interrogation of the girl that had been brought in. Unlike Todoroki they didn’t have any information on her. No missing persons report, no records, nothing that matched the description they had of her. 

She was awake when they came in, backed as far as she could from Sansa with her cuffed hands. No one had allowed her to get cleaned up, so she was even filthier than Shoto. Shouta froze at the door when her eyes widened in terror and she flinched once he walked in. She tugged at the cuffs, trying to pull even further away. 

“I won’t use my quirk,” he promised softly, trying to give her a reassuring smile. 

The kid grimaced but at least she stopped tugging on the cuffs. A spider crawled out from behind her hair and started walking up and down her arm as if trying to soothe her. Shouta was glad he’d ordered Hizashi to stay outside. 

Tsukauchi went through the same introduction as he did with Shoto, not getting any response from the girl in the same way. She only replied when he started asking direct questions. 

“Aranea, 14, Spiders,” she said quietly and quickly. 

“False, False, False. Full name please, and remember my quirk lets me know if you’re telling the truth or not” Tsukauchi prompted, already sounding exhausted. 

The kid fiddled with her hands for a bit, playing with a bit of webbing that appeared when she tapped her fingers with each other. 

“I don’t know, Shouto said Arenea was a cool name and I’ve always used that. And I didn’t name it or have it registered,” she admitted reluctantly, staring down at the floor. 

“True… You don’t know your name or your age?” Tsukauchi asked, eyebrows raised. 

The kid shrugged. “I don’t remember anything before meeting Shoto.” 

“Is that how you joined the League,” the kid shook her head. “Verbal answers please.”

“Kinda? I guess I met Shiggy when I was… nine I think? But I joined the League with Dabs and Shoto. I knew Shoto before and kinda came along after Dabs convinced him to join.”

“True, so how did you meet them and the other members?”

“That’s all I’m telling you about the League,” she said, bringing her shoulders up and looking up to glare at him. It had the ferocity of a wet kitten in Shouta’s opinion. 

“Okay,” Tsukauchi said with a sigh. “Why did you join the League?”

“They had food,” she replied quickly. 

“True. Nothing else?”

“Shoto joined,” she added with a shrug. 

Tsukauchi asked more questions that got them nowhere, relenting when Nedzu dropped down from the vent after Aranea refused to answer another question about her role within the League. 

And it was immediately clear why Shoto had agreed only if she was convinced. 

“What do you get from this?” she hissed at Nedzu. He could see four pupils in each eye and had to force himself to not turn away despite how it made his skin crawl a bit. It would be cruel. “You’re not going to convince either of us to be hero under the commission, so I don’t see what you get from making us students of the hero course. ”

“We can see about you both changing tracks or even schools entirely once we can be assured you’re no longer an active threat,” Nedzu promised. “As for what I gain from this, well. I simply believe those sent down a wrong path should get a chance to get help and really live their life. Don’t you?”

“You don’t know anything about me. Shoto, I get it. You think you know everything because he went to your school for a year and he’s Endeavour’s son. I know you don’t have any records or information on me. Hell, who's to say that I don’t have the ability to make Tsukauchi’s quirk register truth as false and false as true?” 

Tsukauchi grimaced as he muttered “True.”

“Fascinating! But that won’t be an issue. From what I can already see you’re no older than 14, malnourished to an extent, and have scars that are concerning. There’s also the issue of the tattoo on the back of your neck.”

Shouta frowned, wondering when his employer had been able to see something like that considering the girl’s hair being down and covering any skin. But he noticed the way she froze like a deer in headlight, backing away slightly despite the chain attached to the cuffs pulling taunt. 

“It’s a birthmark,” she hissed, turning to glare at Tsukauchi when he opened his mouth. 

The man choked, a large spider on the tip of his tongue. Shouta almost activated his quirk before Nedzu held up a paw to stop him. 

It was too late though. The kid had noticed the way his eyes had started to glow and pulled back in panic so fast that she lost balance, letting out a silent scream as her wrists popped with the table not budging. 

“As part of the program I would appreciate it if you refrained from using your quirk unless it's sanctioned and supervised,” Nedzu said softly as he moved forward, examining her wrists. “We’ll have Recovery Girl heal you once we get to U.A.. Shouta kun could you get the nurse to come and wrap this for the trip? And Tsukauchi please get the discharge ready for them both as well as ankle monitors-”

“I didn’t agree,” the kid hissed at the rat, glaring at him with teary eyes. "Plus you don't need to bother. It'll be fixed in a bit."

Nedzu sighed, actually looking somewhat upset. “The offer was only really for Todoroki,” he admitted. “You are right. There is no record of you, nor any evidence of anything that we could use to have you put in Tartarus. But because of your mark the Commission deems it too high of a risk to let you go free or into the regular foster system,” he sighed. “I truly am sorry.”

“I hate you,” she said quietly.

“I know,” Nedzu replied quietly. “I don’t expect it to change, but I do hope we’ll be able to gain back your trust. Both of yours.”

“You can’t get back something you never had,” the kid growled, looking anywhere but at them. 

They didn’t answer, walking out of the interrogation room. Nedzu turned to him as he rejoined Hizashi, who was leaning against the one way mirror so that he wasn’t looking inside. 

“They won’t want to be separated,” Shouta pointed out, taking Hizashi’s hand. “And you can’t put a quirk suppressor on the kid.”

“You won’t like the Commission’s solution,” Nedzu said with a frown, glaring at nothing in particular. 

Chapter Text

Despite her comment to the detective Aranea really hadn’t been lying about much. Maybe about joining the League, but she wasn’t sure about the definition of that anyway. She lived with them, sure. But she wasn’t a member . More like a house plant. She did her own thing and they fed her. 

Her dad would probably have killed her if she actually joined the League.

She was truthful when she said she wasn’t sure when she’d met Shiggy. The years before she met Shoto were blurry, so her age was something she could never really get a grasp on. She did her best, but it was difficult when she had no clue how long a year was. 

There were fragments that she remembered and a couple facts that had stuck. She knew for instance that she wasn’t really human, but she wasn’t a quirk either. Something called nen? It was unclear. She had vague memories of twelve different figures that were all of different colours and shapes, faded voices she couldn’t place sometimes echoing in her head. 

She remembered a thirteenth figure. This one wasn’t any more solid than the others but the voice was more soothing. It came more often to her, with pieces of advice or stories that would play in her head so she could sleep at night. She remembered that figure pressing kisses to her forehead and holding her like she was the most priceless treasure. 

Then she remembered red eyes. One last kiss while standing outside, wrapped in a miniature version of his coat as he promised that he’d find her and told her to run. 

So she did. The sun and the moon alternated between them, and she ran until the webbing making up her legs couldn’t take it anymore. The only notable thing she knew happened while she was running was that she bit hard on someone’s hand. (Shiggy still had the scar, it was the only way she knew that she’d met him then.)

The only other thing that stood out in her sun faded and blurry memories was another voice. One full of sunshine that played over the radio, the thirteenth figure even leaving it on as he read. The turning of pages mixed with the music that would play, but that wasn’t what had her sitting by the radio. 

“Good morning listeners! I’m your host Present Mic-”

When her comfort was gone, even her coat lost to the streets, there had still been Present Mic. His voice played in coffee shops she stayed at. The League never asked, just let her turn on the radio whenever he was on air. Always the first to tune in. She never called (she’d thought about it, when she just wanted her dad to come home, but didn’t have a phone) but she always listened. 

One thing she'd never been able to forget was that Mic had entomophobia and arachnophobia. The days after he’d shared this the League had noticed how she shrunk a bit on herself. Kept her spiders less visible than usual. 

Keigo had called in for them. He’d kept it vague, asking about kids with insect and arachnid quirks, but hearing Mic be quick to ramble about how those kids still got his love had helped. And the explanation of what a phobia was made her be more careful. She’d never thought that people could have real reasons for being scared of her friends. 

Aranea didn’t like heroes, but she did like Present Mic. 

Who was cracking the door open, fidgeting with his hands as he slowly walked inside. 

***

It took Hizashi much longer than he would have liked to open the door. 

He’d never hated the HPSC more than he did at that moment. Forcing a child who from all information Nedzu had had never hurt anyone into a rehab program, not to mention putting her with heroics when she was at maximum 14- 

Both him and Shouta couldn’t help but think about falling buildings and a partner gone too soon. 

He understood the logic of placing her with them from their point of view. They didn’t know that Shouta wouldn’t even think of using his quirk on the child now that he knew it cut off her ability to breathe. Or that Hizashi would enforce it, despite his phobia. This was a kid, not a villain. One that apparently had ties to a group the IHPSC had given up on ever apprehending. 

It still felt so unbelievably cruel to put her and Shoto with them. Cruel to Shoto who would have to live in the same apartment as Hitoshi, a classmate that might have some resentment towards him (they would do their best to explain, but with the whole perfect quirk thing that they hadn’t quite gotten him out of... well he didn’t have the highest of hopes). Cruel to Hitoshi to be civil with the traitor that was part of the group that nearly got his dad killed. And especially cruel to Aranea considering the fact she was apparently made of spiders. 

His therapist was going to have a field day with him. 

He’d asked to see her in person, one on one. If that didn’t go well, they’d figure out some other arrangement. It would be difficult, but they’d be in the same building. Maybe one of the other teachers would be better suited and they’d just have to move next door. Or pass the kids over anytime the HPSC came to do a check…

You can do this. She’s just a kid. You can do this. 

He cracked the door open slowly, letting it go once he was inside. It swung shut on its own, the soft click seemingly echoing in the silence as the kid stared at him with wide eyes. She was sitting on the floor under the table, Tsukauchi having released her cuffs when it had been established that she wasn’t an active member of the League. 

There were no spiders visible on her. Which was strange considering how Shouta had warned him of the ones in her hair that he’d spotted and knew Hizashi would also notice. He sat down cross legged in front of her, at enough of a distance that she wouldn’t feel trapped. Every single word he knew in both Japanese and English had slipped his mind, and he couldn’t find any to start the conversation. 

The kid turned down to her arm suddenly, eyes narrowing as she hissed “stop it! He finds you scary!”

He froze. “What?” he blurted out, his voice rising a bit and making him wince. The kid didn’t react. She covered a spot on her arm with her hand, holding it tight enough that it was starting to become white. “Hey careful with yourself kiddo-”

“She wants to meet you because I named her after you. I told her you have a phobia but she doesn’t understand and is not listening to me,” the kid rambled, still tightly clutching her arm. 

That made him pause. “You… know that I have arachnophobia?”

Her nod made her webbed hair bounce. “ And en-to-mo-phobia” she said, sounding out the word carefully. “I’ve always listened to your radio show and you said that once. I got really sad but Kei called you and you said you still loved all the kids with quirks like that! But you can’t help that they really really scare you!” 

“You named a spider after me?”

She looked up suddenly, her eyes widening. He noted the normal number of pupils. 

“Is that bad?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Shoto said it was okay. I’m sorry, I can- I can squash her if-”

“No!” The walls trembled with the use of his quirk, but the kid still didn’t react. Which led him to believe she not only listened to his show, but tuned in immediately. It was only during his introduction that he ever slipped, and that was only ever consistently listened to by one person- oh. He softened, looking down at where she was still clutching her arm. “It’s totally okay, little listener. I’m super flattered! In fact, could I…” he gulped. “Could I meet the crawly listener?”

The kid eyed him nervously, before finally removing her hand from her arm. 

Out crawled the tiniest spider Hizashi had ever seen. It was bright yellow with a black clef on top. It stayed by the hole it had crawled out of, standing up on its back legs to wave before quickly crawling back. 

Hizashi stayed frozen, but he managed to not make a sound. Aranea seemed to notice, rubbing her bruising arm. 

“Sorry-”

“She’s very cute,” he interrupted, shaking himself out of it. “What species is she?”

Hizashi decided right then and there as the kid brightened and excitedly started telling him about being able to create all new spider species, and how this one was designed based on him, that he would die for this kid. It was worth having to deal with the phobia in the future, if he got to see his little listener smile like- 

Oh. 

He’d already gotten attached. 

Shouta was never going to let him live this down. 

At least maybe the exposure therapy would be good for him. 

And Shouta wouldn't be able to talk for long anyway. Hizashi would have his revenge. 

Chapter Text

In the time Hizashi took to promise Shouta he actually would be able to handle having the kid be in their home, fill out all of the paperwork, and get the tracking cuff onto Shoto, Arenea had apparently fallen asleep. They found her still underneath the interrogation table, her arms and legs curled up in the air and her eyes closed. 

Shoto just huffed with fond exasperation before grabbing the tracking cuff they had for her and slipping it onto her arm. He’d made sure before taking his that hers wasn’t secretly a quirk suppressor like his. It clicked shut, the key safely in one of Shouta’s uniform pockets. He went to pick up the kid but was shoved aside by Shoto, who growled at him. 

He didn’t try to move forward again, putting his hands up in surrender. Shoto stopped growling but continued to glare, picking the smaller teen up with ease into a bridal carry. She tucked her head into his shoulder, limbs still curled up. 

They led the way to their car. Nedzu had thankfully arranged for it to be dropped off at the station, so they didn’t have to figure out how to actually get back to U.A.. 

The teachers had already been moved into on campus dorms. Cementos had built them for those pulling all-nighters or who wanted to crash instead of heading home, so it was easy to have everyone simply move it right after the raid. Movers would be delivering anything needed from their homes in the morning. Now all that remained was to get the students’ parents’ permission to move onto campus. The league was still out there, even if All For One was as far as they could tell permanently out of commission. 

Shouta looked into the rearview mirror halfway through the drive. Shoto was still up, his eyes empty as he looked out the window. Aranea’s head was on his lap, her seatbelt pulled tight by the position she was in. The kid was mumbling incoherently, a tiny smile on her face. Whenever she started to stir Shoto would start playing with her hair, not glancing away from the view they sped past. The kid seemed to have less control in her sleep, a few spiders reemerging and climbing her hair. Some even crawled onto Shoto, who didn’t even acknowledge it. 

Hizashi kept his eyes forward and away from the mirror, hands shaking slightly. Still his eyes were filled with determination, so Shouta said nothing. 

He was more worried about Hitoshi’s reaction anyway. 

They drove into the underground carpark and found their spot easily, Shoto sliding out with Arenea in his arms again before they could even offer help. He didn’t speak as he followed them up into the building. 

Shouta was grateful everyone was either gone or too tired from the raid to be in the common room. He doubted that would have gone very well. It was only them as they went up the elevator to their floor. 

Taking a quick breath, Shouta unlocked the door. 

As expected Hitoshi was awake. He looked up from his phone as they entered, Fish on his lap and a cup of coffee in his hand. The brat was lucky Hizashi would make an exception this time due to the circumstances. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be drinking coffee this late.  

It took only a couple of seconds for Hitoshi to notice Shoto standing behind them. He straightened so quickly Fish jumped up with a hiss, coffee almost splashing out of his nearly empty cup. His eyes narrowed with disdain. 

“What is he doing here?” he hissed, glaring at the teen that had nearly gotten them all and his dad killed.

“Hitoshi-” Hizashi started softly, taking a step forward. He stopped at the sudden thump from behind him, turning around to see Arenea on the floor and Shoto holding his arm with a grimace. “Little listener?”

Shoto didn’t respond, instead kicking the upside down girl. Before Shouta could step in she turned around, blinking up at her brother. 

“You could have just asked to be put down or tapped me,” he grumbled, pulling his bloody hand away. “Why’d you have to bite me?” The girl just continued blinking very slowly, almost like a cat. Then she curled her limbs back up and closed her eyes again, more mumbles quietly coming out of her mouth. “I’m not carrying you again,” Shoto threatened flatly, even if he was already crouching down to gently pick her up again. 

“We should probably look at that,” Shouta pointed at the wound while Hizashi took that escape to go get the first aid kit. 

“I’ve had worse in training.” Shoto brushed off, not looking at him. “It’s not deep. She was just dreaming.”

“I’m not blaming her,” he said softly, crouching down. “But we should still disinfect it.”

The teen paused, narrowed eyes finally acknowledging him. 

“Fine,” he sighed after a while. “But after I put her down. She’s heavy.”

Considering Sansa had heartbrokenly told them only a few hours earlier that the kid weighed nothing Shouta doubted it, but he didn’t call the teen out. Just nodded, his knees cracking as he pushed himself back up. He turned to Hitoshi, who was still glaring at them though the confusion had softened it somewhat. 

“We’ll explain tomorrow, okay kid? It’s been a long night,” Shouta told his son quietly, ruffling gravity defying hair. 

The teen opened his mouth to argue, before taking note of the exhaustion clinging to him like a second skin and begrudgingly agreeing. 

Shouta led the two to the room they’d be sharing. They technically had two guest bedrooms, but one had been commended by Tensei and Nemuri when they stayed over and he doubted the kids would want to be apart anyway. So he opened the door to the room, noting with disdain that they’d have to go shopping. 

… Maybe he could convince Hizashi to just do online shopping this once. 

Shoto immediately beelined for the bed, unceremoniously dropping the girl on top of the covers. She didn’t stir even a little. Then the half hot half cold boy jumped up and sat at the edge, waiting for Hizashi who’d reemerged with the kit to do what he wanted. 

Shouta took it without a word. Hizashi had frozen at the sight of the larger spiders currently exploring the bed away from Aranea’s body. The man wished them a quiet trembling goodnight before walking quickly to their bedroom. Shouta sighed. 

Shoto didn’t speak, just letting the tired man disinfect the bite and wrap bandages around it. Shouta took the time to do the same to the cut on his forehead. Once that was done the teen collapsed onto the bed, paying no mind to how dirty both him and the girl were. Just layed back, trying and failing to fight off sleep. 

“Good night kiddos. Get as much sleep as you need,” Shouta said silently, closing the door behind him. 

Shoto watched him go with furrowed brows. Shouta heard him whisper: “He didn’t lock it” when he thought the man was gone. 

He shook his head. This was going to be… something. 

Now to go cuddle Hizashi. And Hitoshi, who’d snuck into their bed. Watching his parents fight those nomus had shaken him badly, even if he didn't say it out loud. Shouta sighed. 

It wouldn’t make him adjusting to the two other people in their house easy. That was sure. 

Chapter Text

No one in the Yamazawa household stirred until long past noon.

Unsurprisingly Hitoshi was the first awake. Shouta was second, his light sleep disturbed by his son’s attempts to get out from under Hizashi’s arm. Sometime in the night his husband had flopped onto his back and starfished, an arm almost slung over Hitoshi’s face. 

Shouta ignored his son’s hissed threats and grinned at his plight before slipping out of the room. 

There was no sound coming from the guest bedroom. His knock was left unanswered, so he pushed the door open quietly. The sight nearly gave him a heart attack. 

Only one of the teenagers was on the bed. Shoto was reading through a random book that they’d forgotten inside, looking bored out of his mind. As far as Shouta could tell, Arenea was nowhere to be found. 

“Where’s Arenea?” he asked, gaining the teen’s attention. 

Shoto glanced to his side, took in the empty space, and sighed before setting down his book. Shouta watched with his arms crossed over his chest as the teen leaned over the bed and knocked on the wood in a rapid pattern. 

Arenea’s head popped out from underneath. She had a serious case of bedhead and her eyes were narrowed to keep out the light. She had a few spiders running around her hair and face, tiny holes opening and closing to match her breathing. 

Shouta’s heart slowed back down to an acceptable pace as the kid crawled the rest of the way out, yawning as she rubbed her eyes. When she looked up each eyeball held four pupils. The kid blinked at him slowly. 

“I’m going to make breakfast,” he grumbled, leaving the door open. 

Hitoshi was already in the kitchen, clutching a mug of coffee like his life depended on it. Another one was set by his seat. Shouta ruffled his son’s hair in thanks before chugging the entire cup, beelining towards the coffee machine before he’d even swallowed. 

After his third cup he started working on the miso soup, Hitoshi watching him in silence. The two other teens followed Hizashi when the man finally came out, his hearing aids in and a bright smile on his face. The husbands exchanged a quick kiss before Hizashi helped set the table, keeping an eye on the teenagers. 

Hitoshi was openly glaring at Shoto, who was staring back at him with no emotion. Arenea was ignoring the two of them, watching Shouta cook with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. 

He placed the bowls in front of all of them, taking a sip as he observed the two League members. Shoto continued to stare at Hitoshi without blinking, easily grabbing his spoon and starting to eat without even a glance away. Arenea stared into the bowl without moving, keeping her hands underneath the table instead of reaching for the cutlery. 

Just as Hizashi opened his mouth to ask the kid if she was alright Hitoshi cursed, having to stop the impromptu staring contest as his eyes started to sting. Shoto took that opportunity to stand up with a smug grin, heading into the kitchen. 

Hitoshi’s eyes narrowed as he watched the traitor open their fridge and look inside as if this was his home. “Hey asshole, ask instead of going through someone’s fridge.”

“Hitoshi-” Shouta warned, though his eyes didn’t leave Shoto’s back. 

Shoto didn’t respond, grabbing a bottle of orange juice, an apple, and a banana from the counter before coming back to the table. He slid Arenea’s bowl of miso towards himself and placed his found items in front of her in exchange, returning to the kitchen to grab a cup that had been left to dry. 

Arenea smiled as she reached out to pour herself a glass of orange juice with shaking hands, gulping it down like she hadn’t drunk in days. She then eyed the bottle sadly. 

“You can drink as much as you want, little listener,” Hizashi assured. 

The kid absolutely beamed at him, forcing them to squint at the sunshine radiating from that smile. She grabbed the bottle and refilled her glass again and again until she’d emptied every drop. Once she’d stared down into the empty bottle as if that would make more liquid appear for a solid few minutes, she moved on to eating the apple. Shoto had finished his bowl of miso by then and was eating the second one. 

“Why were you under the bed this morning?” Shouta asked curiously, turning towards the girl now that she looked a little bit more lively. 

The kid didn’t respond, her attention laser focused on the fruit she was eating. Shoto huffed, taking another sip and gulping it down before answering for her. 

“She sleeps either in webs or burrows,” he explained. 

Arenea finished her apple, licking her fingers to get all of the juice off. Her eyes were back to what they would consider normal. She frowned at them as if she was only now taking in their presence, tilting her head slightly to the side. 

“You know you could have just asked for a map instead of creating one,” Shoto muttered, pushing the banana closer towards her. 

Shouta didn’t think he was meant to have heard that comment, so he tucked it away for later. Arenea stuck her tongue out at the teen but still accepted the banana, peeling it carefully and taking much more careful bites than she had with the apple.

“Is anyone going to finally explain what they’re doing here?” Hitoshi hissed, waving between the two. 

Arenea gulped the rest of her banana down in three bites, grabbed Shoto’s hand, and dragged him back to the guest room. Smart, Shouta thought, as he heard the door click close. Leaving the two adults with their son, who looked seconds away from using his quirk to get answers. 

“They’re part of a rehabilitation program Nedzu is starting,” Shouta explained slowly, pushing away his empty bowl and crossing his arms on the table. “They’ll be staying with us at least until they fulfill the requirements to graduate from the program and we can find someone else to take them in.”

“He sold us out! You nearly died because of him!” Hitoshi yelled, jumping out of his seat. 

“And we aren’t ignoring that,” Hizashi finally spoke up, taking Hitoshi’s hands and giving them a squeeze. “But the two of them have… reasons for doing what they did. I’m not saying that it was okay,” he added quickly, cutting off Hitoshi’s indignant rant. “I’m saying they need help and they’ve been ignored for a long time. What kind of heroes would we be if we just locked two kids away for making mistakes when they had no other option?”

“Oh please. What kind of trouble could the golden boy have with his perfect quirk-”

“Endeavour is under investigation,” Shouta cut off, narrowing his eyes at his son. “Quirks aren’t everything Hitoshi. Even the perfect ones. That said their reasons are between them, us, Hound Dog, and anyone they choose to talk to.”

Hitoshi opened his mouth. Closed it. Then slumped forward in resignation, letting Hizashi tug him carefully into a hug. 

“So how is this going to work?” he finally asked quietly. 

“They’ll be staying in the guest room together-” Shouta started, only to be interrupted by a grinning Hizashi. 

“We need to take them shopping!” 

“Hizashi. They’re still going to be seen as villains-”

“Oh come on Shouta. We’re the masters of not being recognised in public. A hoodie with the hood up for each of them and boom! No problems!”

“We could just shop online-”

“Shopping?” a soft voice asked from close behind them, making them all jump. They whirled around to stare at the girl who’d somehow managed to make it all the way to the couch without being noticed. 

Shoto was glaring at them from the doorway of the living room like a guard dog. 

“Yes! We need to get you little listeners clothes, the necessities…” he paused dramatically, giving the kid an exaggerated wink. “Some toys…”

“Drawing supplies?” the kid asked, her eyes sparkling. 

“Of course! With lots of glitter!” 

“If your insides get glittery don’t complain,” Shoto grumbled, pushing off the doorway and collapsing on one of the two person couches. 

Aranea followed behind him, falling on top of him and grinning up at the teen. 

“I can make a glitter spider and set it loose in Bakugou’s dorm.”

“... Have one of them go into Nedzu’s office too and I’ll-”

“Absolutly not,” Shouta snapped, making both teens turn to glower at him. “You aren’t allowed to use your quirk more than just passively. Especially not to terrify students.”

“So you don’t want her to put glitter all over Nedzu’s office?” Shoto asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Shouta had to admit that was slightly tempting. 

“No.”

“This is hell,” Arenea grumbled, glaring up at the ceiling. 

“Maybe let's hold back on buying glitter,” Hizashi whispered. “Did you two come out here for something? Not that you aren’t allowed around of course! Just-”

“We’d like a shower,” Shoto interrupted the man’s spiral, waving towards the state the two of them were still in. 

Right they probably should have offered that a while ago… Hizashi grinned, pushing Hitoshi towards Shouta with a glance towards the man that let him know he’d handle it. The two teens got off the couch with groans, following behind the overly cheerful man as he went to show them where everything was and grab them some of Hitoshi’s old clothes until they’d gone shopping. 

“As we were saying,” Shouta grumbled, picking the conversation back up from where they’d left off. “They’ll be part of 1A under strict supervision, and depending on her level once Nedzu tests her Arenea will probably be doing other schoolwork or hanging out with him.” 

He dreaded to think what those two would be talking about. He could already see Nedzu loving the possibilities of the girl’s quirk. 

Hitoshi groaned. “And they absolutely have to be here?”

“Commission’s orders,” Shouta sighed. “Believe me it would not have been our first choice. Arenea creates spiders and her quirk can’t be turned off in any capacity or she stops being able to breathe.”

“And you just… let them go with pops?”

At that exact moment there was a quirked scream down the hall, followed by a very sheepish “sorry!” and Shoto grumbling that it wasn’t fair of her to use spiders to get the shower first. Shouta sighed as he heard footsteps rushing towards their door. 

Maybe he could convince Nedzu to let the kid glitter spider the Commission president’s office?

Chapter Text

“This feels like overkill considering you didn’t even know I was part of the league,” Shoto grumbled as he took in the dead empty mall, hands shoved into the pockets of one of Hitoshi’s old black hoodies. 

Shouta couldn’t help but agree, even if he was slightly relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with the horror that was mall crowds on top of the normal horror of shopping with Hizashi. He loved his husband, truly. But why did he have to adore looking at every store and everything in them?

“So are the staff… commission agents?” Hitoshi asked, staring into the clothing store in front of them and finding no one. “Also remind me why I had to come?”

“So you can get things for yourself as well! It’s a family outing!” Hizashi cheered, somehow not put off by the Commission’s weird takeover of the mall as a safety precaution. “First order of business, getting you listeners some clothes!”

Shoto shoved a spaced out Arenea, who blinked a couple times before turning to acknowledge him. “Quit it.”

“Sorry,” she muttered sheepishly, running a hand through her hair. 

They followed Hizashi into the empty clothing store, Arenea’s eyes widening with each step as she stared at the racks of clothing in the youth section. As they walked Hizashi noticed that her hand would suddenly reach out to an item before freezing, hovering over it for a moment. She’d then slowly pull it back, forcing her eyes away. After the seventh time he stopped, moving towards the dark purple hoodie that had white fuzz inside of it and looking through the sizes until he could find an XS. 

“Aha!” he cheered. 

The kid blinked up at him. “I think that’s too small for you,” she pointed out. 

Hizashi placed his hand on his chest in mock offense, gasping dramatically. “Betrayal! How will I recover!?” he wailed, stopping only after he heard the kid giggle. “Seriously though little listener this is for you. We’re here to get you some clothes. You can put anything you see in the basket, and we can try it on once we’ve got everything.”

The kid frowned. “But I thought taking things was bad?”

“Taking things without asking or paying is stealing,” Hizashi explained softly, crouching down so he was more eye level. “I’m going to be paying for this. So no need to worry!”

Arenea was still frowning. “I… umm…” she stared down at her hands before shoving them in the pockets of the jeans she was wearing (from when Hitoshi was ten). “Can you grab the things for me?” she asked quietly. 

Hizashi looked down at her hands, then remembered the aborted motion towards things the kid had liked. If it wasn’t about money… he glanced towards Shoto, remembering how the teen had grabbed the hoodie Hizashi had offered Arenea before leaving with a grumble of not dealing with her getting more pockets. 

Contrary to what many assumed based on his persona, Hizashi was actually very smart. He’d gotten noticed by Nedzu during school afterall, with his ability to put pieces of puzzles together remarkably quickly. It didn’t take long for him to form an idea of what the problem might be. 

“Kleptomania?” he asked silently enough that only the kid would hear. When the word didn’t seem to ring a bell he clarified: “you can’t stop yourself from stealing?” 

The kid bit her lip but nodded, keeping her gaze locked on him. Probably making sure he wouldn’t suddenly make a move towards her. He made sure to telegraph his movements as he brought his arms up to invite her in a hug, smiling when she stepped forward and buried her head in his chest. 

“I got it from dad,” she told him, voice muffled by his shirt. 

“Okay. That’s perfectly okay,” he whispered, unconsciously running a hand through her hair without even thinking of what it was really made of. “Thank you for telling me. Is it okay if I tell Shouta and Hitoshi? Just so they know what’s going on if things go missing at home?”

“Shoto usually puts things back if he finds them,” she told him. “But… they won’t hate me?”

“Of course not!” he promised, letting the kid pull back so she could look up at him. She didn’t look very convinced. “Kiddo you don’t think I’d marry and adopt assholes right?” 

She frowned but slowly shook her head. He smiled softly, not really thinking as he leaned down and quickly kissed her forehead. It got him a squeak, wide grey eyes staring up at him. He let go when she pulled away. One of her hands slipped back into her pocket, but she left the other out, intently staring at his hand. 

He reached out to take it, giving her a squeeze. Carefully she squeezed back. Hizashi looked around, not finding the other three. 

“Want to continue looking together before we find the grumpy trio?” he asked.

The smile he got in response was almost blinding. 

It was a lot smoother after that, the kid tugging him along. She kept making the aborted hand motions no matter how hard she shoved her free hand into her pocket, but Hizashi just used it to identify what she wanted. There was a lot of blood red and very dark purples he noticed. She picked out one light blue sweatshirt and some light blue jeans, but mostly got things in either of those colours or the occasional item with spiders on it. She also got very excited when she found a purple bandana. That was the only thing she snatched, though she did place it in their basket which Hizashi counted as a win. (He snuck a deep red one into the basket as well when she wasn’t looking.) 

It was peaceful. Meanwhile…

“Those clash horribly,” Hitoshi groaned, watching Shoto try on a pair of velvet purple jeans with a puke green shirt and a yellow belt. Shouta stared at the ensemble trying to figure out why any of these items were even on sale. 

The traitor turned to stare at him, his eyes as dead as ever before. “It’s clothes.”

“You’re going to make someone have a seizure,” Hitoshi replied, sifting through what the teen had randomly grabbed and staring at the wild choices. Why was there a shirt with drawn on abs in there? “Shigaraki has more sense of style than you.”

“He doesn’t wash his hoodie,” Shoto remarked, crossing his arms. 

Hitoshi gagged. “I didn’t need to know that!” 

“I’m sure Arenea will take my side,” the traitor huffed. 

“She’s shopping with Hizashi,” Shouta pointed out, turning his head to look at the Heavens. Or you know, straight into the blinding artificial lighting of the dressing room. “If she had as little style as you we’d have heard about it by now.”

“I still don’t get how pops is hanging around her.”

“She listens to his segment of his radio show from the beginning.”

“And that was enough for him to be okay with dealing with spiders?!”

Shouta shrugged. “Apparently she knows about the phobia and has mostly kept them hidden.” He then turned back towards Shoto, activating his quirk just for the extra intimidation. It didn’t seem to have much effect judging by the teen’s unimpressed stare. “No.”

“If you let me get these we leave here quicker,” Shoto pointed out, the tips of his lips twitching upwards. 

“No.”

“I thought-” he stopped, turning towards the entrance of the dressing room where a very determined group of spiders were marching towards them, dragging along a basket filled with clothes that even from a quick glance looked much better than what he’d originally picked out. The teen pinched his nose, striding towards the door so he could pick up the basket and peer out to the rest of the store. “Stop spying on me or I’m squashing them!” he yelled. 

There was no response. He groaned, gently picking up the spiders and helping them reach the closest vent so they could be out of anyone’s way before disappearing into one of the stalls again. 

Thankfully for Shouta the other teen at least seemed to have some sense of style. Most of the clothes were plain white, black, or pale blue. The only exceptions being a hawks hoodie and a pastel coloured hoodie with Satan Respects Pronouns and a goat on it. 

Hizashi met them at the cash register, holding Arenea’s hand as the kid watched the Commission agent handling this store bag up all of their items. Shoto ruffled her hair once he was close, getting a grumble from the girl as she pulled her hand out to try and pat it down. 

“Stop being a creep.”

“Stop being a dumbass then maybe I’ll consider it,” she snarked back, letting go of Hizashi’s hand. 

Shouta was kind enough to not immediately point out the man’s pout at the loss. 

Getting hygiene products went much quicker, both Shoto and Arenea already having certain preferences they gravitated towards. Shoto grabbed them for both, shooting them a glance before putting period products he preferred into the basket. They didn’t mention it. Hitoshi grabbing products for himself just in case made the tension bleed out from the dual coloured teen. 

Decorations were next. Which brought out a whole new side of both of them. 

Shouta was very tempted to do a DNA test to make sure they weren’t actually biological siblings. It went something like this:

“No, I'm not putting a picture of Endeavour up as a dart board. There’s no way I’m sleeping with my sperm donor's face looking down on me. Also I don’t think we’re allowed darts.”

“If you choose that peppermint candle I’m putting a bunch of spiders under the covers!”

“This carpet should be illegal. Why would you want to walk on something that would be used to torture someone?”

“Why aren’t there any spider themed things?”

“Probably because most people find them creepy.” 

Then after grimacing at a set of flower covers. “So they’d prefer to look like they robbed their grandma’s house?”

Eventually they settled on: an On Air neon light, a figurine of Present Mic (Hizashi definitely didn’t almost destroy the store with his squeal of excitement) that Aranea nabbed without realising than sheepishly handed over when Hizashi gently called out her for it, snowflake shape pillows, a galaxy duvet cover, a weighted blanket, a futon for Arenea that she could put under the bed, a nightlight, and a mix of trinkets the two compromised on. 

They also got a candle that smelled of old books after Arenea read through everything carefully to be absolutely sure it did not have peppermint or lemon. 

The craft store was both easier and not. Easier because Shoto was simply watching Arenea wander around and wasn’t offering any of his input. Harder because Arenea had let go of anyone’s hand and had to have her pockets checked before leaving. 

She still put things in the basket, but she also nabbed a UFO keychain and a butterfly pin. They put back the pin when she grimaced at it, but kept the keychain. 

After that Hizashi decided they should get food at the food court before heading out. As they passed a pet store, Arenea turned her head towards it. 

“They have a spider in one of the cricket boxes.” 

They all paused at the random statement. There were no crickets visible from where they stood. 

“Umm okay?” Hizashi said quietly, turning away from the store. 

Hitoshi stared at her as if trying to read her mind. Shoto just grabbed her arm, pulling her along. 

“Are you good for more than fruit than?” he asked quietly. 

The kid nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Can we get a burger?” 

“Of course little listener!” Hizashi - having shaken off the shiver from the mention of the crickets - cheered. 

“They’re weird,” Hitoshi said quietly as he and Shouta fell slightly behind the other three, watching as Arenea and Shoto bickered with a snickering Hizashi egging them on. 

“If they make you too uncomfortable we can probably see another teacher taking them,” Shouta offered gently, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You’re still our first priority.”

“Move over pineapple on pizza! You have a new, scarier competitor!” Hizashi exclaimed in his presenter voice. The two watched as he pointed out at the two teens by his side. Shoto had his lips almost pulled up into a smile. Arenea was doubled over in laughter, clutching her stomach. “Pineapple burger! A punishable offense or the work of a genius?” 

“Imagine if that’s what got you sent to Tartarus,” Shoto deadpanned, turning to Arenea. He deepened his voice, putting a finger up to mimic a moustache. “What am I in for? Oh you know I killed a guy. What about you? Pineapple on a burger? Guards get me out of here!” 

Arenea’s laughter continued to echo around the deserted mall, the kid wheezing as she pulled herself back up, trying to stifle her remaining giggles. 

“Nah,” Hitoshi decided, watching his pops grin as he reached out to ruffle both of the other teens’ hair. They ducked out of his grasp, exchanging a glance before running off with the man chasing after them, hands outstretched. “Maybe they aren't that bad. Still really weird though.” 

Shouta grinned, ruffling his son's hair and getting an offended squawk in response. 

Yeah. Maybe this wasn't that bad after all.

Chapter Text

The traitor was currently staring intensely at Hitoshi. 

Pops was on patrol, trying to help with the rise in petty crime that came with All Might’s sudden retirement. Dad was asleep in his room, getting as much rest as he could before patrol that night. Which left the teens in the living room, alone. 

He’d honestly expected the other two to remain in their room, as they’d done for the past couple days. Arenea was probably the most open of the two, but it was almost exclusively with Pops. Something that still weirded him out considering, again, the whole phobia thing. She was not nearly as considerate when the man wasn’t around. 

Case in point, she was currently working on a puzzle with the help of five pretty small colourful spiders. Hitoshi always fell asleep during documentaries but even he knew that anything colorful no matter how small was dangerous. Alas Sushi had decided to sit on his lap while he was enjoying his cup of coffee and hadn’t moved since, making him a hostage. 

That wasn’t his main concern though. He was pretty sure that unless they jumped really fucking far he was safe on the farthest edge of the couch. What was concerning him was that Shoto had been staring at him without blinking for the past ten minutes or more and it was becoming unnerving. 

“Arenea,” he hissed. The younger teen hummed, looking up to meet his eyes. The sight of her eight collective pupils freaked him out and gave him goosebumps, but he held strong. If Pops could handle the spider quirk, he could handle more pupils than there should be in an eyeball. Also he had a goal. “ Why is he staring at me?”

She glanced towards the teen in question. The traitor didn’t acknowledge it, continuing to try and seemingly read Hitoshi’s soul, somehow . The notebook he’d been writing in when Hitoshi had come into the living room was open on his lap, nonsensical illegible writing scrawled onto the entire two pages. 

“How were you born?” Shoto asked before Arenea could answer Hitoshi, making him nearly drop the empty mug he’d been holding for what felt like the past hour. 

Arenea laughed before covering her mouth, biting down hard on her hand to stifle the sound. It tore the webbing that seemed to be in place of her skin, making a few spiders crawl out of the bruise-like white patch and crawl around her face. Hitoshi turned to stare at Shoto in horror. 

“I’m not giving you the sex talk,” he grumbled, running a hand through Sushi’s fur. 

Shoto narrowed his eyes. “I know how babies are made.” Hitoshi didn’t get time to respond before Shoto continued. “I’m trying to figure out who Aizawa sensei had you with.”

Hitoshi swallowed his own saliva sideways and started choking. Arenea was now looking down at the table trying to conceal her laughter, though her shaking shoulders betrayed her. 

“What?!”

“It- it could- could be a q-quirk,” Arenea added through giggles. 

Shoto snapped in her direction as if her suggestion was brilliant. He finally broke eye contact, grabbing his notebook and flipping to a new page. “Cloning? A version of Aizawa from an alternate timeline? Maybe some sort of asexual reproduction quirk… Or could he be like you?” he whirled around, eyes wide as he pointed his pen towards Arenea. 

“He doesn’t die when Aizawa looks at him, so we can rule out the quirk resembling a child theory,” she responded with mock seriousness, ignoring Hitoshi staring down at Sushi with hope the cat would finally free him. 

She did not. 

Shoto nodded, scratching something out in his notebook. Hitoshi’s phone was too far for him to call for help without moving Sushi. He was doomed. The dual coloured teen turned his attention back to him. 

“No.” Hitoshi tried, glaring at him. 

“Do you think that’s more evidence for the clone or Aizawa from an alternate timeline theory?” Shoto asked, waving at Hitoshi’s face as he once more turned to Arenea. 

The girl held up one finger, picking up a puzzle piece from a particularly impatient spider. The ones that had crawled out onto her face were currently busy patching up her hand. She placed the piece down where the spider instructed (it fit, somehow). “I still think he’s probably his kid and not a clone,” she added unhelpfully. “Otherwise how would you explain the quirk difference?”

Shoto nodded, making a note of that. “Which brings us to the question of who your mother is…”

“I was adopted!” Hitoshi growled in exasperation before turning towards Arenea who was doing her best to stop laughing as she placed yet another piece of the puzzle down. It was an old one Dad and Pops had done back when they were teenagers and had kept: of a bunch of kittens in a bookshop. The borders of the puzzle were coming into shape, the teen deciding to start there before starting the cute kitties. 

Shoto leveled him with an unimpressed look. “Of course. The news would have reported on an UA student having a child. They got you back later. That’s why it’s called a secret love child, Hitoshi.”

“My vote is still that there’s no way it’s Midnight,” Arenea piped up. “She’s too cool for him.”

Hitoshi turned to glare at her. “Why are you encouraging this?”

“You ate the last strawberry this morning,” she told him without looking up, shuffling through the box of puzzle pieces. 

“And you resorted to torture as revenge?!” he screeched indignantly, pointing towards Shoto who had gone back to writing something in his notebook apparently at least partly dedicated to proving him and Dad were biologically related. 

Arenea didn’t even look up at his dramatic exclamation, poorly concealing her grin by ducking down once more to look at the puzzle pieces. It was made much less effective by the fact she’d allowed Shoto to braid her hair, meaning it was pulled away from her face. “I’ve been told I’m not allowed to use my quirk on others. So I’m outsourcing.”

Hitoshi leaned down to scream in Sushi’s fur. The cat, used to Hizashi’s daily dramatics, didn’t move. Traitor. He was going to have to come up with a new name for Shoto because that title was now reserved for the cat keeping him from escaping. 

It was at that moment that the master bedroom door opened, Shouta shuffling out to get some coffee in his system before patrol. He stopped at the doorway of the living room. Arenea was still trying to hold back her laughter, Shoto was muttering like a lunatic about Ms. Joke and quirk compatibility, and Hitoshi looked like he’d been forced to witness what hell looked like. 

He made to backtrack when Arenea looked up, eight pupils trying to all focus in on him. It brought Hitoshi’s and Shoto’s attention to him, Shouta very much not liking the way Shoto perked up and Hitoshi seemed to be going through the stages of grief at the sight of him. 

“Did you secretly have sex with Midnight or Ms Joke back during UA?” the bi coloured teen asked with no greeting.  

Shouta blinked. Once. Twice. “... what?”

Arenea placed the box down, her laughter ringing out from underneath the table as she lay down on the carpet. Hitoshi screeched something that sounded slightly like the word “No!” so loud he was finally released by Sushi. His son immediately took that opportunity to launch himself at Shoto, attacking him with a pillow while his victim remained as stoic as ever, barely putting up a fight. 

He decided he didn’t want to know and turned towards the kitchen. He needed double the coffee after that question. 

Arenea nearly gave him a heart attack when he turned around. She was leaning into the kitchen, half her body still in the living room where chaos could still be heard. 

“Your son isn’t checking his phone so I thought I’d tell you that Hizashi texted that he’s on his way back, in case you didn’t get it.”

Shouta’s lips twitched upwards into a small smile. He stepped forward, patting the kid’s head. “Thanks kid.”

She moved away after one pat, but gave him a grin before turning away. Shouta went back to enjoying his coffee, before a thought struck him.

“Arenea don’t look at other people’s phones without permission!” he called. 

“You what?!” Hitoshi shrieked, pausing his attack and turning towards the teen who was frozen like a deer in headlights halfway to her original position. More than aware that Shoto and Arenea didn’t have phones, at least not yet. 

She turned to face him. Then grinned . “Midoriya says hi! With a heart!” she chirped before making a dash towards her room, Hitoshi running after her armed with his trusty pillow. 

Shoto picked up his pen and notebook, getting back into his comfortable position. 

Arenea tripped over Fish before she could reach sanctuary, laughing as she was tackled to the floor. 

Hizashi walked in to the sound of laughter from the hallway as Arenea pleaded for surrender while Hitoshi hit her with the pillow, more than aware she could easily use her quirk if she actually felt uncomfortable. Shoto had moved so he was sitting against the back of the couch with a clear view of the two, pretending to still be focused on his notebook. Hizashi pulled out his phone to take a picture, biting his tongue so he wouldn’t squeal. 

“I take it they’re bonding then?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around his husband, pecking his cheek. 

Shouta sighed. It was more fond than anything. “Through violence, but yeah.”

“Don’t act like that isn’t how you bonded with me.” Hizashi teased, pressing a kiss to his neck.

They didn’t see Shoto’s eyes gleaming at that information or him writing it down under the almost unreadable title Evidence.

Chapter Text

Hizashi couldn’t really say that what happened after Nedzu handed Arenea the exam he’d made to determine her level was a backslide. It was more like a collapsing cliff or an avalanche. There had been trust there that he’d unknowingly built years before she came into his care. Trust that disappeared the second she glanced down at the thick stack of papers that was neatly stapled together. 

It had been hours.

Nedzu had at first wanted to proctor the exam. That ended when the kid stared at the pack of papers for an hour straight without blinking and Shoto let them know when asked that that meant she’d sent her consciousness somewhere else. Nedzu had suggested that a change of environment could be helpful. So he’d taken her home, unable to meet her eyes the entire time. 

Setting her up in the living room had done nothing. Shoto nudged her every time she started staring at the packet for too long, at one point tossing a pillow at her face. She’d blink a couple times, turn a few pages, then go right back to trying to get her mind away from the test. 

Shoto still didn’t trust them, so asking him about it led Hizashi nowhere. He tried getting an answer out of Arenea, crouching down in front of her and using his softest voice. That earned him a flinch followed by a glare that made his heart feel like it was breaking into pieces. 

Arenea flinched from Shouta constantly and glared at the man if she thought he was going to use his quirk, but not at Hizashi. It was hard for him to not let a tear slip as the kid scooted away from him, flipping to another page. 

She hadn’t even touched the pencil they’d given her, one with a cute little furry ball at the end. 

Eventually the kid grabbed the packet and marched to her bedroom. Hizashi winced when the door slammed shut, deciding it was best not to mention she needed someone to be there. Her room didn’t have electronics because Nedzu wasn’t done with getting them, so there really was no risk of cheating. 

The pencil still sat on the table, unused and unsharped. 

Shoto stayed on the couch, continuing to write in his notebook like he’d been doing the entire day. Shouta was visiting the parents of the students. He wished the man was here for this, that they’d waited before doing the test. Maybe he’d know what to do. 

Hizashi didn’t understand. The kid was usually sweet and sometimes a bit snarky. She’d been great that morning once she’d fully gained back awareness, offering to come along with Shouta. He’d been grumbling about needing to explain the redemption program and dealing with All Might. Arenea had offered to join so that she could stop him from talking if needed. Shouta had ruffled her hair with a grin, thanking her for the offer. 

Hitoshi was out hanging out with Kaminari who’d been one of the first visited (and one of the easiest, his mother was a wonderful hero who was fully supportive of the redemption program). Nedzu had organised them so they started with the easiest and ended with the hardest. At least Shouta didn’t have to visit Midoriya since the teen had been adopted by Nemuri when he was eleven after his mother had passed in a villain attack. It reduced the people he had to go visit from his class from 20 to 17. 

Speaking of Hitoshi…

Hizashi was working on dinner when his son came home. The teen frowned when he looked into the living room where Shoto was still sitting and then the kitchen. 

“Arenea still with Nedzu?” he asked, jumping up on one of the stools. 

Hizashi sighed, turning around. Hitoshi grimaced as he took in the worry written all over his face. 

“She’s in her room. Stormed off. I haven’t gone to check on her,” he said quietly. His phone buzzed. Shouta letting him know that he was on his way back no doubt. Hizashi turned back to the stove, stirring the pasta that he’d dumped into the sauce. “Could you go let her know that dinner is almost ready?” 

Hitoshi nodded, not bothering to ask why he wasn’t asking Shoto. If he hadn’t moved from the couch it meant he thought he wasn’t welcome in their room. That had been something they’d picked up quickly after they found Shoto sleeping on the couch. 

He called it a territorial takeover. Hitoshi decided he didn’t want to know what that could mean. 

The door was closed so Hitoshi knocked. He hadn’t actually gotten to see their room. Hizashi had pretty much been the only one allowed in, and only so he could help them with the walls and the stuff they’d bought. Shouta had stopped trying to get in after ending up with a spider on his face that had made Hizashi scream. The only exception was in the morning. 

There was no response. Great. 

“I’m coming in! If you drop a spider on my face like you did with Dad it will mean war!” He threatened, opening the door and slipping inside. 

Thankfully no spiders landed on his face. He took a moment to look around. The packet was abandoned on the desk, still empty. Every single pencil had been webbed up against one wall. Arenea was above the bed in a web hammock, her back turned to the room. 

The Present Mic radio that Hizashi had gifted her was on, playing an old segment. The phobia segment. From underneath he could vaguely see that Arenea was curled around a spider plush Nemuri had snuck Shouta once she’d been told about the teen. 

He looked back at the test, slowly making his way towards it. The papers had clearly been flipped through multiple times, the holes around the staple relatively large now from the movement. A lot of questions in the middle were about philosophy. He frowned, glancing up at the kid that still hadn’t acknowledged him. 

“How come you haven’t answered any of these?” he asked. No response. “Question 1: What is the capital of Japan?”

“Tokyo.” Arenea replied quietly. 

Hitoshi nodded even if she wasn’t looking. “Question 2: (33)squared−(32)squared?” 

“65.” The kid replied without hesitation. 

Hitoshi hummed.. “Dinner will be ready soon. I’ll knock when it’s done okay?”

Arenea didn’t reply, but he wasn’t forced to cough out a tarantula so he took that as a yes. He kept the packet, leaving the room with it held in one of his hands and making his way back to the kitchen. Shouta was back, sitting at the counter and complaining to Hizashi about the Yaoyorozus. Hizashi nodded along. 

“I told her I’d knock when dinner was done,” Hitoshi announced, jumping up and placing the empty packet on the table. 

Hizashi frowned. “She still didn’t answer anything?” he asked as Shouta picked it up to read through the questions Nedzu had placed. 

“I don’t think she knows how to read.”

“Hitoshi.” Shouta’s voice was low, a warning. 

“No actually. Look, she's been going through this the whole day. So I told her the first question was what the capital of Japan was. She gave the right answer.”

Hizashi turned to give him his full attention, lowering the stove temperature. “How does that-”

“The first question of the test is a science problem,” Hitoshi explained, pointing to it. “She’s been staring at it the whole day. You’d think she would know that the first question asked about plants. The second question is math, so I asked her something with numbers. But I asked her what (33)squared−(32)squared was-”

“Hitoshi, that's complicated.” Hizashi pointed out. 

“It’s from my Ectoplasm homework. I knew the answer was 65. I came up with this on the fly pops. Anyway she gave it almost immediately. But the real question is: There are 6 trees along the river with 4 cardinals in each tree. How many cardinals are there all together?”

“Which is much easier,” Shouta said quietly. He continued flipping through the test, narrowing his eyes. “Why are there so many philosophy questions?”

“I was going to ask the same thing,” Hitoshi admitted. “I don’t know shit-” “Language!” “About philosophy so I couldn’t ask her a question about it.”

Hizashi sighed, ruffling his son’s hair. “That’s actually very helpful kiddo. Thanks. I’m going to go talk to her now.”

“I’ll call Nedzu in the morning to see if we can make an audio test,” Shouta added, getting up to take over dinner. “And to ask why the hell this test is 45 percent philosophy questions.”

Hizashi gave him a sappy smile before turning towards the doorway.

“She’s in a web hammock and has webbed up all her pencils!” Hitoshi warned. 

He caught Shoto staring at him from behind his notebook, the teen’s eyes as devoid of emotion as before they’d taken him in. 

He knocked softly once he reached the bedroom door. “I’m coming in okay little listener?” he asked loud enough he was sure the kid had to have heard. 

When she didn’t respond he braced himself before slowly opening the door. Thankfully there was only the webbing and not any of the eight legged creatures, so apart from goosebumps he was doing alright. The kid didn’t say a word, staying still as he took a seat on the desk chair and spun it to face the bed. 

“Sweetheart. Hitoshi thinks the reason you haven’t written anything down is because you don’t know how to read the questions. Is that right?” He asked gently. 

The kid curled up tighter, hiding her face with the stuffed animal in her arms. 

“It’s okay if it’s true little listener.” He promised. “We won’t be upset or think less of you. I mean you answered one of Hitoshi’s very complicated questions! That was very impressive.”

“Dad would read.” The kid said, almost quiet enough that he missed it. 

“Is that how you got so smart?” he asked. A small nod in response. He smiled. Not his Present Mic smile. A much softer, gentler kind of smile. “We’re going to have Nedzu change the test. Maybe a recording or he asks you the questions and you respond. That sound okay?”

Arenea didn’t give an answer but she did pull herself into a sitting position, looking more present than she had the whole day. She placed the spider plush down, climbing out of her hammock and quietly landing on the bed. Hizashi opened his arms, letting the kid hide in his arms as he hummed along to the song now playing on her radio. 

“Do you like philosophy?” he couldn’t help but ask. She looked up, frowning. He rubbed her forehead with one finger until it smoothed out again. “Nihilism, Moral Relativism, Determinism…”

The kid’s mouth opened in an oh shape before she nodded. “Dad talked about them a lot.”

Ah that would explain why Nedzu - who had remained tight lipped about the tattoo that Arenea had concealed with some webbing - had included so many of those. He’d have to remind the rat that Arenea wasn’t her father. It was unfair to place expectations on her based on him. 

“I’m surprised you remembered, those are quite complicated.”

“I spy on him sometimes. When I can. He still talks a lot about them. It’s silly.”

One day Hizashi and Shouta were going to have to ask about the numerous times both her and Shoto had talked about her spying. Today he decided to let it go, delighting in her giggles as he scooped her up. 

“Well I think I’m hungry, therefore I am hungry!” He exclaimed, bringing her out of the room. 

“That’s not the correct use of that!” Arenea gasped, before launching into a very detailed explanation of Descarte’s claim. 

Shouta smiled from where he was plating the food as the kid was dropped off onto her stool, not stopping her rambling. Hizashi laughed, surrendering with his hands raised. The kid then turned to Hitoshi with a grin and started quizzing him on overly complicated math. 

His son looked like his soul was leaving his body as he tried to do the math mentally. 

Next to Arenea, Shoto sat silently, watching the interaction. Shouta didn’t comment on the small smile on his lip as he joined in on pestering Hitoshi. It seemed that maybe they’d passed some kind of test themselves. 

The next day when Nedzu conducted the test on Arenea’s intelligence he would determine that it was all over the place. The kid didn’t know how to read or write, but she was fluent in Japanese, English, Chinese and a fourth language Nedzu was not forthcoming about. The kid also didn’t seem willing to share what it was, just shrugging and stating that: “No one was going to speak it anyway”. 

She had barely any knowledge of even basic science, but was great at extremely advanced mental math. It varied though. Graphs were a no, geometry was very iffy, but the kid was great with algebra. The kid’s geography skills were slightly terrifying, but her having an in depth discussion of nihilism with Nedzu almost sent them both running out of the office. She was very well versed in psychology but was a lot more clinical about it than felt comfortable. 

Nemuri was going to get very excited when they told her the kid adored art and art history though. Even if Hizashi was starting to think the kid had the skills most would associate with an art thief. Why did a fourteen year old know how to make the price of an artwork go higher?

The test showed that she was good in the fields her dad was good at, but most things that would be considered standard education were severely lacking. History and quirk studies especially. As well as hero law and ethics, though that was a bit less of a surprise. She didn’t even know the legal definitions of hero and villain. Her answer to that question had been: “I don’t think Shigaraki and Dabi were trustworthy sources for that.”

It was decided eventually that Arenea was too all over the place to put with Class 1A. Most of her math skills were easily above their level, but her history knowledge was nonexistent and while she was fluent in English she still didn’t know how to read. 

They wanted her to socialise though, so they compromised. 

Nedzu would get her during Heroics, and then they’d do alternating days. One week she’d see Nedzu on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The next Tuesday and Thursday. That way she was socialising every other day. That would probably also be more easy for Shoto to accept since he was stuck in all of the classes. 

The teachers wouldn’t be giving her assignments. Those would be handled by Nedzu. He didn’t want to give his staff more work and it simplified everyone’s lives if she just paid attention to the lessons and maybe helped out with any schoolwork done during class. 

Everything was ironed out by the time Class 1A’s time to move into the dorms finally came around. Shouta was very much not looking forward to that.

Chapter Text

“Neither of us are moving into the dorms.” Shoto grumbled that morning as he stabbed his pancake repeatedly. Arenea was happily crunching on bacon, ignoring him as she carefully observed the way Hizashi was making them for future reference. “I don’t understand why we have to be there.”

“We have to introduce Arenea.” Shouta replied with a sigh, rubbing his face. This was the hundredth time they’d had this conversation in the span of a couple hours. Patrol had been long yesterday. He just wanted to sleep and not deal with his hell class. “We also need to set up rules.”

“We already know the rules.” The pancake Shoto had been attacking finally stuck on his fork and he bit into it, chewing loudly out of spite. Arenea rolled her eyes at him. 

“For them, little listener.” Hizashi tried to sooth, coming back with a plate piled high with bacon that he slid towards Arenea with a wink. She grinned, picking up the most crispy one. Hitoshi took the opportunity to snatch one with a cry of victory, the kid glaring at him. 

“I’m making you sit down to listen to Shoto’s new theory.” She threatened. 

“Can’t be worse than his previous one.” Hitoshi snarked, taking a bite of the delicious bacon. 

“It’s about Shouta being Nedzu’s secret love child. Which makes him your grandpa.” The kid tore into her bacon to hide her grin as Hitoshi started choking on his stolen bacon, Hizashi hitting him harshly on the back. Shouta looked like he was going through the stages of grief. Simultaneously. 

“Please tell me you’re joking.” He rasped. Arenea tore off another piece of her bacon and glanced towards Shoto, who had a glint in his eyes. “Arenea that was a joke right?”

“Shoto can tell Hitoshi all about it once the kids have settled in their dorms.” Hizashi - gremlin that he not so secretly was - added fuel to the fire with no hesitation, ignoring his son mouthing I’ll kill you. “All of the teachers are going to be busy except for All Might so we can’t have someone else watch you. Plus I doubt you’d want Arenea meeting your class alone.”

“You should be worried about them.” Shoto said under his breath. “Arenea pass me some bacon.”

The kid did so without even looking at him, extending her arm so he could reach a strip. Hitoshi slammed his hands on the table. 

“How come he gets bacon without threats!? I asked you nicely a plate ago!”

“Big brother privileges.” Arenea replied, perfectly mimicking Shoto’s emotionless expression as she looked up at him. 

“You think Nedzu’s my father?!” Shouta’s brain finally rebooted and he whirled around towards Shoto, not even thinking as he activated his quirk. 

For a moment nobody moved. Shouta realising his mistake quickly turned it off, turning around to apologise. Hizashi had shut his eyes in preparation for the absolute parade of spiders that happened whenever Shouta slipped up. Hitoshi turned towards Arenea, eyes wide. Hizashi cracked one eye open when nothing happened. 

Arenea hadn’t moved. She was still happily eating her bacon, having apparently missed the quirk activating. There was grease dripping from one corner of her mouth. Hizashi opened both his eyes fully and went to grab some paper towels, leaning over to gently dab it away. 

Shouta breathed out a sigh of relief before turning back towards Shoto. The teen had taken the distraction to quickly finish his plate, sliding off of his stool with a mocking salute. Arenea did the same seconds later, rushing off with him with a giggle. 

“The rat can never find out about this.” Shouta hissed, turning towards his snickering husband. 

“Dad. It’s Nedzu.” Hitoshi voice was muffled, having placed his head down into his arms. 

“... Shit. Is it too late to quit?”

“Language Shouta!”

***

“Look on the bright side!” Arenea cheered, walking backwards down the path as Hitoshi led them towards the 1A dorms. They’d decided it was best for him to bring them once all of the classes were inside the buildings and the students had all arrived. One massive headache instead of a bunch of tiny ones. (No one mentioned that it also reduced the number of spiders that risked being coughed up or crawling out of people’s noses.) “You can antagonise Bakugou again.”

“Didn’t dad say not to do that just before leaving?” Hitoshi asked. 

He wasn’t actually against the idea considering the asshole kept harassing Izuku, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the two former villains. Arenea didn’t look too impressed by his statement, turning back to Shoto. The way she easily avoided any sort of obstacle despite not paying attention was making Hitoshi jealous. He wondered if there was a tiny spider giving her directions. Could they speak? Did she understand them?

He was starting to sound like Izuku. 

“Your dad also told me not to spook them.” She replied, waving towards the spiders that were crawling around freely since Hizashi wasn’t around and her eye pupils. “Not my fault he gives impossible instructions.”

“Wonder if you traumatised Bakugou with that spider in his mouth.” Shoto muttered, making Hitoshi shoot him a disbelieving look. The teen shrugged. “He insulted Midoriya.”

“Why was Midoriya even a part of your conversation while he was kidnapped?”

“Shoto told Shiggy to kidnap Midoriya and you instead of Bakugou. Would have gotten the same results because duh hero kids but if we were gonna have to put up with one of you at least you two would have been decent at conversation.” Arenea effortlessly jumped over a relatively large branch, laughing as Hitoshi narrowed his eyes at her. “Look, the only one who even thought the plan would have any success was Shiggy. We were just trying to spare ourselves yelling.”

“Compress was on our side too.” Shoto grumbled. “Can’t believe Dabi is the one that decided to follow the oh great leader.”

“In his defense I think he really just wanted to get back to his boyfriend and AFO would have made us camp out there if we tried to come back empty handed.” 

“Love the use of we. Remind me what you were doing during the whole thing?”

“Hey! Playing Animal Crossing with Shiggy was very important work! It kept him off your backs the whole time!” Arenea defended, stopping once she reached the steps of Heights Alliance. “Is this really a dorm building for one class?” 

Shoto glanced up at the building, thoroughly unimpressed. They could already hear their classmates inside. Hitoshi watched silently as she slid behind Shoto, the teen straightening so she was almost invisible to anyone in front. Hitoshi walked up the final steps, pushing open the absurdly large doors.

Sudden silence fell on the crowded room as Shoto peered inside, Shouta hiding his face in his capture scarf as he stood between his hell class and the two teens. Arenea was still safely hidden behind Shoto, who stopped and crossed his arms. Shouta immediately noticed that he stopped so Arenea was close to the doorway. It gave her a quick out if needed. He decided not to comment on it. 

“Sensei!” Iida yelled, chopping his arms where he stood. Shouta repressed a sigh as he turned towards the teen. “Didn’t you say there were two of them? Shouldn’t there be a search-”

Arenea slid out from behind Shoto before Shouta had time to answer, letting the taller boy tuck her underneath his right arm. Some of the class paled or gulped, having seen the state of AFO before cameras were redirected. Those that had been part of rescuing Bakugou were especially tense. The explosion teen was glaring at them from the back, hands curled into fists at his side. Shoto narrowed his eyes. Shouta also noticed that the spiders on Arenea were larger than usual, two separating to crawl onto Shoto instead of on her. He didn’t acknowledge them. 

“Hellspawn. This is Arenea.” He introduced with a sigh. The kid didn’t move, eight pupils analysing all of the gathered students and making them shiver. “Arenea, this is Class 1A. I’m sure they can introduce themselves later-”

“I already know their names.” She told him, keeping her eyes on the students still. 

Bakugou tsked. “Of course Creepy Eyes knows our names. She helped fucking Icy Hot sell us out to the league.”

Arenea bristled. Shoto’s glare got darker. 

“Don’t call her Creepy Eyes.”

“I didn’t help him do anything. Last I checked your little show of power is public. It played on every screen in Japan. Hard not to know any of your names or faces.”

“So what you were just a little pet the League kept around-”

The class screamed as the explosive teen doubled over and started coughing, a spider falling out of his mouth. It didn’t leave though. Instead it climbed back onto him, large and determined. Bakugou couldn’t explode it away without injuring himself and the spider bit down on his arm. Hard. 

“Arenea! Enough!” Shouta yelled, turning towards the girl. 

Shoto pushed her back behind him, glaring at Shouta as he shielded the teen with his body. The spider on Bakugou crawled off, making its way behind Shoto with terrifying speed. Bakugou clutched his arm, snarling at the two other teens. 

“You can’t use your quirk on students.” Shouta growled, taking a step towards them. 

He stopped when the door slammed shut. He hadn’t even noticed Arenea backing out. Shoto took one look at him, eyes holding a spark of what looked like panic before he opened the door and rushed out. Shouta swore into his scarf. 

“Bakugou, you're getting detention. All of you stay here.” He ordered before running out. 

Luckily the two weren’t far. Shoto was standing at the base of a tree by Heights Alliance, looking up at what Shouta assumed had to be Arenea. Sure enough he found her sitting on the highest branch of the tree, one that did not look sturdy enough. 

“Arenea-”

“She wasn’t part of the League.” Shoto turned around to glare at him. “Nedzu made that clear. You said you’d tell the class. Then we walk in and all of them are looking at her like she’s some freak. And then you let Bakugou call her a pet!” 

“He’ll be getting detention for that.” 

“That’s it?” Shoto hissed, taking a step forward. 

Shouta held his ground. “That’s it considering he was kidnapped by the League and held captive. Not to mention Arenea’s repeated use of her quirk-”

“He should learn to watch his mouth then-”

“I’m not going back.” Arenea’s voice was quiet. She’d curled up against the trunk of the tree, still balanced on that thin branch. Her head was resting on her legs. “I’ll see them in class. I’m not going back into the dorms.”

Shouta sighed. “Arenea the goal is for you to interact with them to avoid distractions during class. We can’t delay this.” He pleaded. 

“Then I’m not coming down.” She said quietly, before stopping blinking.

Shoto swore loudly, staring at the tree. The branches were too high to get to. Climbing it would be dangerous. Shouta stared up at the child no longer responding up in the tree with a grimace and pulled out his phone. Hopefully Hizashi was going to be able to handle this. 

Chapter Text

Hitoshi wasn’t the first one to speak up once the doors had banged shut behind his dad and two other teens.

It was surprisingly Shouji - one of the quietest of the class - who turned towards Bakugou, something almost hurt in his eyes. 

“Calling her creepy eyes was too far.” The teen said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Commenting on someone’s mutation like that is just gross.”

“Would you say the same thing about me and Shouji?” Tokoyami added, Ojiro nodding along as he stepped close to the two other teens. 

“Come on guys! Bakubro gives everyone nicknames!” Kirishima tried to defend. 

“I don’t like when he calls me Dunce Face.” Kaminari said quietly, glancing back towards the door. 

“There’s a difference between a nickname and saying something about how someone looks when they don’t know you.” Shouji hissed. 

“Are you really taking her side over Bakubros?”

“At least Arenea is kind enough to respect people when they tell her something they do makes them uncomfortable.” Hitoshi jumped in, glaring at the explosive teen. 

“She put a fucking spider in my mouth!”

“Have you even considered that maybe it's because she doesn’t want to hear any of the shit you say?”

“You want to fucking go Mindfreak?”

“No fighting outside of supervised spars!” Iida yelled, putting himself in between them. 

Kirishima frowned as he turned towards Hitoshi. “Not cool siding against your friend bro.”

“One. Bakugou is not my friend.” Hitoshi held up one finger. “Two. Arenea wasn’t even a League member. She played video games with Shiggy and ate their food. Aizawa sensei told you this. You can get mad at Shoto all you want but leave her out of it.”

“Living with a criminal organisation and not turning them in is still villainy!” Iida exclaimed. 

“M-maybe she had nowhere else to go.” Izuku said softly from where he was sitting on the couch. 

Shouji nodded gravely. “People don’t treat quirks like her's positively. There could be many reasons why living with them was the best option.”

“She still helped them kidnap Bakubabe.” Mina jumped into the conversation, coming to stand with Kirishima. 

“Apparently she was playing Animal Crossing with Shiggy. If anything she was being a distraction.”

“How do you know that Shinsou?” Uraraka asked, narrowing her eyes. 

“For fucks sake how do you think I know? They live with my parents! I’ve been dealing with them for like a week!”

Before anyone else could join the conversation the door opened, Shoto storming in. He slammed the door behind him, glaring at all of them as he stayed at a distance. The temperature in the room seemed to drop the longer he was there, all of the students eyeing him with either distrust or disdain. 

Tsu was the one to break the silence first this time. “Todoroki-”

“It's Shoto.” The teen immediately interrupted, his tone sharp. “Don’t call me Todoroki.”

“Shoto, did you really join UA to be a spy, kero?”

“I joined because Endeavour made me. The spying was just a bonus once we figured out All Might was going to be teaching there.” 

“How could you?!” Uraraka snapped, taking a step forward. “We were friends!”

“I came in with a broken rib and not a single person noticed or asked.” Shoto replied flatly. They all paled slightly. “I had a burn on my right wrist for a week after the sports festival. Should I go on? If you give me a week I might be able to get you a list.”

“You could have said something-”

“Against the number two hero? All of you have made a comment praising him at some point. Was I supposed to believe you would take my word for it?”

“Of course we would have!” Several members of the class exclaimed. 

Shoto remained unmoved. “You played a video in which he called me his greatest masterpiece. Uraraka told me I was so lucky that he was my father.”

“I thought he was being supportive!”

“No you’re right. Endeavour referred to you like an object in almost every press interview.” Izuku admitted softly before turning to look at Shoto with wide teary eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t do enough to stop you from becoming a villain, Shoto!”

Shoto seemed to soften somewhat at that, ducking his head. “It’s not your fault Midoriya. I was already in the league before we met.”

“I still think kidnapping Bakubro was uncool.” Kirishima snapped. 

Shoto rolled his eyes. “Trust me none of us wanted to take him. Almost all of us were trying to actively grab literally anyone else. Not my fault Shiggy is an idiot and Dabi wanted to get the fuck home so he could screw his boyfriend.”

“You would have let another one of us get kidnapped?” Half of the class yelled. 

“It’s not like anything happened apart from being tied to a chair. We weren’t going to let a kid get turned into a nomu or something.” Shoto glanced back towards the door. 

“Is Arenea okay?” Hitoshi asked.

Shoto shook his head before turning back to the escalating conversation.

Hitoshi really hoped his dad came back and fast. 

***

“Hey little listener! Mind coming down from the tree?” Hizashi called, staring up at the girl that hadn’t even moved a bit from her spot in the tree. 

Shouta pinched his nose. “She’s doing the thing where she isn’t present in her body and getting her down would be a pain.”

Hizashi hummed in acknowledgment before laying down on the grass. He could still kind of see the kid on the branch. “Have I ever told you about our friend Oboro?” he asked. Shouta looked away, fingers clutching at the fabric of his costume. “He could create clouds that he could ride on with his quirk. We used to eat out on the roof and sometimes, if he was really upset at Sho, he’d create a cloud and float it upwards. Sho couldn’t do anything because he’d break his bones if he fell! So he would spend time up in the air throwing things at Sho. He’d pull out all of these random things from the clouds. One day he came to school completely naked, with just a cloud covering him. And you know what he pulls out of it? A kitten!”

One blink. Shouta let out a quiet sigh of relief, watching the kid’s hand twitch. Hizashi smiled. 

“I wish you could have met him.” He added, so quietly that Shouta doubted the kid heard. 

Slowly she uncurled from her position, blinking a couple times before easily climbing down the tree. Hizashi pulled her into a hug once she landed at the bottom, running his hands through her hair as she hid in his shirt. 

“He called me a pet.” She mumbled, words muffled by the fabric. Hizashi shot Shouta a questioning look. The man mouthed back later, resigning himself to his husband's wrath once they got home. He wondered what topic he could assign as an essay to Bakugou that would really punish the teen… “There was this creepy guy who called me that once. He grabbed me really hard and said a lot of things that made Shiggy mad. Dad used to make him go ‘way but dad isn’t here anymore and Shiggy got his hand cut and-”

“Shh no creepy people are going to call you a pet here again. I promise.” Hizashi soothed, picking the kid up and placing her on his hip. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“I want to go home.”

Hizashi’s heart squeezed painfully. “I know kiddo. How about we get ice cream after this? Any flavour you want.”

“Shoto has bad ice cream taste. He likes mint.”

“Weirdo.” Hizashi said with a playful grimace, getting a small giggle from the child. “Do you think we should warn everyone about it on Put Your Hands Up?” Arenea nodded. Shouta was glad to see the teen grinning playfully. “I’ll add that to my script. Now let’s go together okay? Only an hour, then we go and get as much ice cream as you want.”

“Hizashi-” Shouta was promptly ignored by his husband, the blonde turning around to march towards the steps with the kid still held in his arms. 

She wiggled free before he opened the door, but she did hold his hand for a moment longer. Hizashi waited until she told him it was okay to lead her back inside, Shouta following closely behind. They could hear yelling in the common room, making Shouta scowl. 

It took them all longer than it should have to notice the three of them, but once they did silence fell on the common room again. Shoji, Tokoyami, and Ojiro were huddled up together. The self proclaimed Bakusquad was in another corner with dark faces, except for Sero who looked conflicted and Kaminari who was standing closer to Jirou and Yaoyorozu. Shoto stepped away from where he’d been face to face with a flushed red Iida, looking Arenea up and down to confirm she was fine. Koda had curled up in a corner with his hands over his ears. Midoriya had dried tear tracks on his cheeks. Bakugou was scowling but thankfully quiet. 

Everyone including Shouta tensed as Kaminari moved, skipping forward towards Arenea. 

“Hi! I’m Kaminari Denki!” He told her with a smile, giving her finger guns. 

She stared at him, eyes wide. “Umm… I’m Arenea?” Shouta stifled a snort with his scarf. 

“I wanted to say your spiders are so cute!” The teen gushed. “Do you have one that looks like a pokemon? My favourites are Galvantula and Joltik. They give you little electric shocks! I guess they don’t have eight legs though so maybe your quirk-”

“You think they’re cute?” The kid interrupted, leaning forward with even wider eyes now that she’d finally processed what had been said.

“Yeah! Especially the tiny ones! I saw a peacock spider in your hair. They’re very pretty! Not as cute as the pokemon spiders though. Those are so fuzzy!”

“Pokemon?” The kid asked, tilting her head. 

Kaminari gasped, dramatically placing his head over his heart. “You don’t know Pokemon?! Senseis! How could you!?” He backed up, pointing towards the elevator. “Stay right here! I unpacked my cards. I have to show you Galvantula and Joltick!”

Arenea watched the electric teen turn around and run to the elevator, almost slamming into the doors. He shouted “I’m okay!” as he miscalculated the opening a second later and actually banged into them, quickly closing the doors before Shouta could remind him that they should stay in the common room. Hizashi bit down on his hand to keep from laughing at the girl’s perplexed expression. 

“Has Shigaraki never showed you Pokemon before?” Shoto asked with a frown. 

The kid shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t always listen and he has. Too. Many. Games.”

 Hitoshi stared at the kid before turning to Shouta. “You do realise you adopted a kid that seems to collect only loud blondes right? That’s like the second one.”

“Hey!”

“I want to see if Monoma could copy her quirk or not.” Shoto added with a grin, turning away from the rest of the class. 

Shouta paled. “I need to call Vlad. That absolutely cannot happen. You’re not allowed to introduce them.” Shoto’s grin grew. “No.”

I will find a way, Shoto mouthed. 

The doors to the elevator reopened, Kaminari rushing back towards them like a hurricane. He elbowed five classmates on the way and nearly tripped on the rug. Arenea looked mildly terrified. He held up his collection book with a cry of triumph before starting to flip through it. Arenea stepped to his side so she could see better. 

“Look! These are spider pokemons!”

“Do people like them?” the kid asked, voice impossibly small. 

“Yeah!”

She smiled. Kaminari looked at her for a moment before sliding his Aradios card out and holding out to her. 

“Here. Your first pokemon card. It’s the original spider pokemon.”

The kid took it carefully, eyes sparkling. “Really?”

Kaminari nodded, closing the book and shooting her his signature finger guns again. She held the card carefully. “Thank you.”

If Shouta considered giving the teen some extra credit, no one was ever going to know. 

Kaminari’s introduction seemed to break the ice for some of the class. Tokoyami, Ojiro, and Shouji came over to introduce themselves and tell Arenea they thought her quirk was cool. Her eyes lit up as Shouji demonstrated his quirk by giving himself four pairs of arms. She stayed a bit distant from Tokoyami, but she apologised and quickly explained that spiders and birds… The teen understood and backed further away, reining in Dark Shadow when the quirk tried to get closer. Yaoyorozu introduced herself as the class rep and told her to ask if she needed anything. Shouta highly doubted Arenea would take her up on that offer but it was still nice. Midoriya hopped over to tell her he found her quirk super cool, and was dragged away by Hitoshi before he could start trying to break it down. 

Eventually Shouta told himself that was the best he could hope for now and they left, leaving Hitoshi behind despite his pleas to be rescued. Arenea waved at him with a smirk as she followed Hizashi out, Shoto close behind her. 

Arenea kept the card on her the entire time, holding it like a treasure and only putting it away so it wouldn’t get stained by ice cream. 

“Well that went well didn’t it little listeners?” Hizashi asked, earning him a dumbfounded look from Arenea and a glare from Shoto. 

“I still think it was unnecessary.” Shoto grumbled. He then turned to Arenea. “And I can’t believe you managed to avoid Shigaraki talking about Pokemon. How were you spared? He was insufferable when Kurogiri got him Pokemon Go!”

The kid just grinned in response, biting into her ice cream. Shouta had managed to talk her down to only three flavours and two toppings. She'd picked mango, red berry, and passion fruit with sprinkles and dark chocolate sauce. 

“I think I’ll have to add you to the episode on ice cream crimes for that little listener.” Hizashi told her with amusement. “That’s as much of a crime as Shoto’s flavour choice.”

“Episode... Arenea seriously?” the teen in question groaned, wiping some of his ice cream on her nose. 

Shouta grinned before taking a bite of his espresso flavoured ice cream, Arenea cheering.  

“Shouta!” Hizashi squawked, earning them multiple side eyes. 

Shouta smirked, taking another bite. It got him a cheerful giggle from Arenea before she followed his example. Maybe the day wasn’t so bad after all. 

Chapter Text

Shouta didn’t know how he was supposed to broach the topic of Shoto’s siblings. 

They’d reached out amid the chaos of the original arrests, begging to be allowed to speak to their brother. With the accusations made by Shoto, Tsukauchi had had to interrogate them as part of the investigation, revealing even more abuse that made the man want to commit several crimes. It cleared them though, and with school reprising in a week it was better in his mind to rip the bandage now than later. 

He decided to bring it up at dinner the day after the Class 1A meeting. Shoto and Arenea had both had time to cool off, even taking a walk with them around the grounds. They still weren’t up to officially meeting the teachers (something Nedzu could push back until the day before classes started back up), but they hadn’t shut down from how the meeting had gone. Shouta counted that as a win. 

They were eating katsudon, Arenea listening attentively to Hizashi complaining about his new station manager. Shouta waited for his husband to take a bite before speaking. He turned to Shoto, the teen having been quiet since the beginning. 

“Shoto. Your siblings would like to see you.” 

Hizashi started to choke, probably appalled by Shouta not easing the teen into the subject. Shouta ignored him, staying focused on Shoto who had stilled. 

He stared down at his bowl of katsudon before lowering his chopsticks. “When?”

“It’s up to you.” Shouta leaned forward slightly. The teen nodded. “But I think they’d like to do it as soon as you’re willing. They’ve been asking since your arrest.”

Shoto was silent for a long while. None of them broke the silence. Shouta couldn’t see what Arenea was doing while angling towards Shoto, but it seemed like she’d stopped eating as well. 

“Tomorrow.” Shoto decided. Shouta tried not to show his surprise at the easy compliance. 

“Alright. I’ll let them know after dinner.”

Hizashi - who’d chugged a glass of water and was fine - turned towards the teen with a bright smile: “could you tell us about them, listener?”

Shoto hesitated, taking another bite. Shouta turned back to his meal, not wanting to pressure the teen into anything. After swallowing his food though the teen started to speak, at first slightly tense but relaxing slowly as Hizashi leaned in to listen. Stories about the few times he saw his siblings, the pranks they played, Touya…

Shouta smiled, happy that the teen was opening up. He turned to Arenea to check on her, frowning when he found her seat empty. She’d finished her food though, so he just brushed it off. Maybe she was just tired. 

Hizashi’s worried glance towards her chair and the hallway told Shouta his husband didn’t think that was it. 

***

The next day started off relatively normal. 

Arenea helped Hizashi cook breakfast, something she’d finally worked up the courage to ask to do. He’d nearly blown out all of their eardrums with his excited squeal, immediately plopping her down on the counter and setting to making the batter with her. She was careful, sticking out her tongue in concentration while measuring. Shouta came out of the room, and after he’d drank his two coffees to function he watched them both fondly. Hizashi hummed a song from his show, and Arenea squeaked when she sneezed and flour went flying everywhere before giggling at Hizashi’s now ghostly face. Shouta hid his smile behind his mug. 

His smile turned to a frown when Shoto came into the room. Arenea seemed to wilt slightly when he sat down on one of the stools, softly telling Hizashi she was going to clean up the flour. Hizashi watched her go with worried eyes, sending Shouta a questioning look the man could only answer with a shrug. 

Breakfast was quiet. Hizashi tried luring Arenea into a conversation about an interview he was doing next week with Gang Orca, but the kid didn’t seem to be really present. She ate her food robotically before vanishing back into her room, the door closing quietly behind her. Shoto seemed too distracted by anticipation to notice. 

Natsuo and Fuyumi were led to their door by Nemuri, who gave them both ribcrushing hugs before sauntering back to her apartment. Natsuo looked around their apartment casually, clearly trying to mask any of his emotions. Fuyumi was bouncing on her feet, wringing her hands. Shoto stepped out of the living room only barely, remaining close to the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Shoto.” Fuyumi exhaled, taking quick steps forward and wrapping him in a hug. The teen was stiff for a moment before he let himself melt into it. “You’re okay.”

“You’re not mad?” Shoto asked, pulling away so he could look at both of them. 

Natsuo huffed. “We have questions, and we were, at the beginning. Mad.” He ruffled his little brother’s hair. “More worried than anything though. I can kind of understand, but you definitely owe us an explanation.”

Hizashi cleared his throat to get their attention, Shoto stiffening slightly at the sound. Noted. “Nedzu’s approved of you walking around the grounds if you want to discuss privately.”

Nastuo narrowed his eyes. “Doesn’t Sho have a bedroom?”

“I share with Arenea.” Shoto explained. The two turned to him, questioning. “I’ll explain everything outside.”

“It’s a lovely day.” Fuyumi said softly, grabbing Shoto’s hand. 

Hizashi waited until the door closed behind them before beelining to the teens’ shared bedroom, knocking softly on the door. 

“Arenea? Shoto and his siblings are out if you want to come out now.” There wasn’t any response. Hizashi frowned. “Arenea, I’m going to come in okay?”

Shouta came over to stand behind him as he tried to turn the handle. Key word: tried. The thing wouldn’t budge, not even a bit. 

“Arenea. Open the door please.” Shouta called, using his teaching voice. There was still no response and no movement. Shouta gently pushed Hizashi aside. “Arenea we can kick in the door if we aren’t given a response.”

Hizashi had his phone pulled out, signing: Nedzu. Shouta nodded. At least having the tracker tell them the teen was still in the apartment would be reassuring. He just hoped his boss didn’t reveal that he’d breached privacy again and placed a camera in the room. Sometimes Nedzu crossed lines without knowing and explaining it to him was always a pain. 

Tracker says she’s still there. Hizashi signed. Nedzu says to wait until Shoto gets back.

He used the sign for snow, the sign name they’d given to Shoto for simplicity. Shouta nodded, stepping away from the door after trying the doorknob once again. 

Hizashi tried to hide it, but the way his husband started baking immediately told Shouta the man was extremely concerned. (Shouta was just as worried. He kept passing through the hallway doing chores when usually he’d be napping, trying the doorknob with no results each time he walked by.)

***

“Wait so the fire was you?” Natsuo asked, staring at his younger brother sprawled out on the grass under the shade of some trees. “I mean I knew it was you but on purpose?”

Shoto nodded. He’d set fire to the training room when he was twelve, getting “trapped” in the flames and nearly dying. It made news all over Japan. Endeavour nearly losing another son to unsupervised quirk training? His ranking had tanked until he was forced to make excuses. After that Shoto had not been allowed to train while Endeavour wasn’t there, which gave him much more time to slip out and work as Duality. 

It also helped that everyone assumed after that that his quirk was untrained and volatile. With help from Keigo and Dabi he’d learnt tricks he could use as Duality that wouldn’t tie him back to Shoto. Even Nedzu hadn’t made the connection, which Shoto was not so secretly pleased about. 

Too bad Shiggy had to ruin it all by kidnapping fucking Bakugou. He knew the plan relied on AFO’s guard being down and his attention focused on All Might, so really Shiggy’s plan had been flawless. But Shoto was still going to blame the Pomeranian for his capture. 

“I’m sorry.” Fuyumi whispered. Shoto turned to look up at her. She was sitting against a tree, a few tears in her eyes. “I should have done more for you. For- for Touya.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He promised, pulling himself up to go hug her. She returned it tightly, her glasses getting crooked. “It wasn’t our fault.”

“Still can’t believe they only listened to you after you were arrested.” Natsuo growled. “A lie detecting quirk? They couldn’t bring one out when Touya tried reporting it?!”

“That’s what I said in my police interview. Along with telling to figure things out themselves regarding Dabi and the rest of the League.” Shoto grinned.

Natsuo grinned back, ignoring Fuyumi’s half hearted scolding as he ruffled his brother’s hair. “That’s my little brother.”

“How’s Arenea dealing with all this?” Fuyumi asked, changing the subject before someone overheard and decided Natsuo was a villain sympathizer or something. “This is a massive change for her right?”

“Better than expected since we’re living with Present Mic and she loved him before everything already.” Shoto replied, smiling. “I think this might actually be good for her.” He admitted a second later, glaring down at the grass. “The stability. We didn’t have that with the League, and she never mentioned it but I know it didn’t help her missing her dad.”

“What happened to him?” Natsuo asked.

Shoto shrugged. “All she’s said is that he told her to run. And that he’s still alive. I know she moved around a lot too when she was with him, so changing it up and staying in one place is less of a reminder.”

“I’d love to meet her.” Fuyumi said earnestly. 

“Yeah Shoto, when are you going to introduce us to our new little sister? We have catching up to do.” Natsuo teased, ruffling Shoto’s hair again. 

“How about now?” He asked with a grin, pulling himself up to his feet. 

The two followed as they made their way back, ignoring the teachers in the common room (thankfully All Might was currently off campus, Shoto didn’t want to run into him). 

He was surprised by how quiet the apartment was. Hizashi was in the kitchen surrounded by five trays of baked goods with some more in the oven, fluttering around the kitchen like a caged butterfly. Shouta was in the living room pretending to work, but his eyes kept glancing down the hallway. Arenea wasn’t out, which barely happened. Shoto frowned. 

“What’s going on?” He asked, startling Hizashi who whirled around with a quirked yelp. 

“Listeners! How was it?” The man asked nervously, hands twitching by his side. 

“It was good. They wanted to meet Arenea.”

Hizashi’s forced smile fell for a brief moment. “I don’t think now is a great time kiddo. She’s been locked in her room all day. Haven’t been able to get any noise out of her.”

Shoto’s frown deepened. He quickly made his way to their room, trying the handle. When it wouldn’t budge he knocked harshly on the door. “Hey let me in!”

“Shoto-” Fuyumi started, taking a step forward. 

“Arenea!” Shoto yelled, trying the handle again. He groaned. “This is a shared room you know!”

Still no response. Hizashi left the kitchen, tugging Shoto away from the door before the teen could break the handle. 

“Give her space until dinner.” He said quietly. “How about you spend more time with your siblings?”

Shoto’s frown continued but he eventually nodded, leading the two into the living room. They spent the time before dinner bonding, getting to actually learn more about Shoto now that Endeavour wasn’t keeping them separated. It taught Shouta and Hizashi a lot about the teen as well, even if they tried not to eavesdrop on the conversation. 

Hitoshi came in for family dinner before they’d left, so he was dragged into the conversation. Natsuo and Fuyumi couldn’t stay longer, having prior engagements, but they made sure Hizashi had their numbers for when Shoto finally got a phone. Arenea still hadn’t come out. 

“Hitoshi can you tell Arenea dinner is ready?” Shouta asked as he helped Hizashi set out the bowls of udon.  

Arenea slipped out the door after Hitoshi asked her to come out, wearing the furry hoodie Hizashi had gotten her on their shopping trip. Hizashi and Shouta were relieved to find no signs of harm on her. She stayed quiet, quickly sitting on her stool and grabbing the chopsticks before anyone got into the kitchen. 

She skipped lunch, maybe she’s just hungry. Hizashi tried reassuring himself. 

“So Hitoshi! First day of dorms! How was it?” Hizashi asked with a grin, leaning towards his son. 

“I hate it.” Hitoshi groaned. “Kaminari almost put aluminium in the microwave. Bakugou tried to start four fights. Tsuyu hung from the ceiling at one point. Mina went around giving out oreos filled with toothpaste-”

“Any property damage?” Shouta asked. 

“Not yet.”

Shouta nodded. “Good enough.”

“You should count emotional damage.”

“It’s good to make friends kiddo!” Hizashi joined in with a smile.

Hitoshi glared at him before turning back to Shouta. 

“They hadn’t realised I was adopted by you until yesterday Dad. Do you know how many questions I got about it?! I had to brainwash Sero so I could escape and then Iida got on my case about it. Izuku was just enjoying it.”

“Sorry kiddo but I’m siding with Izuku here. It’s karma for laughing at him when he let it slip that he'd been adopted by Nem.” Hizashi laughed. 

“If they’d listened to my secret child theory-”

“I’m not related to Dad!” 

“That’s exactly what a secret love child would say-”

Hizashi let the conversation wash over him, turning away from the two arguing. He glanced towards Arenea’s seat, hoping to tease the two with her help. His smile faded when he saw that it was empty, her bowl of udon finished and pushed back. 

“Uh is Arenea okay?” Hitoshi asked, also taking note of the absence. 

“I don’t know.” Hizashi said, chewing on his lip nervously. “She’s been distant since yesterday.”

Shoto froze. “Oh.” He said softly. They all turned to him. He sighed. “I thought that since she was enjoying it so much here she might not get homesick. I guess I was wrong.”

“Is there something we can do?” Hizashi asked, looking like a kicked puppy. 

Shoto nodded slowly. “I usually take her to this library. They know her from before, I guess. She’s free to lash out there or break down. Maybe we can go tomorrow?” 

“Of course!” Hizashi promised immediately. 

Shouta pulled his phone out. Hopefully Nedzu would agree immediately. He didn’t want to know if Shoto would fight the rat over this. It didn’t seem like this was something that would easily pass. 

Chapter Text

The “library” was actually a bookstore that Shouta knew for a fact was a front for underground auctions and it made his eye twitch.  

Knowing and proving were two very distinct things. The “owner” of the place - a man with grey hair and an elegant mustache over lips constantly pulled into an insufferable smug grin - was too smart to be running a place like this. Despite the place having been on every underground heroes’ radar for years at this point none of them had been able to catch a glimpse of even one suspicious entrance or truck. Shouta had once followed a known thief into the place and then been turned around by the maze of shelves until he ended up empty handed and by the door. 

The smug grin on the old man’s face as he looked up from the book he was reading at the register certainly hadn’t helped. 

Hizashi who’d also been roped into the surveillance of this particular store paused for a moment when it came into view, the two new teens in their care sidestepping so that they didn’t collide with him. Hitoshi looked up at Shouta, gaze questioning as the man clenched his capture scarf. 

Shoto and Arenea ignored them. Arenea was in what was clearly her favourite hoodie, the fuzzy hood pulled up over her hair and hands tucked into the pockets. Shoto was walking by her side in silence, face and hair (dying two toned hair was pretty useless considering the large scar on his face that made him easily recognisable) also hidden as best as possible by the hood of the coat he’d put on over his shirt. The two continued to make their way towards the bookstore, the bell overhead ringing as Shoto opened the door. The boy held the door open, eyeing them with a hint of amusement despite the attempt to mask it. 

It broke Hizashi out of his trance, the man hurrying to catch up with the teens, Shouta and Hitoshi following behind at a more sedate pace. The old man was at the front register, dressed in a soft brown sweater over a dark brown button up with beige pants. He looked up from the book he was reading once the door had closed with another jingle of the bell, peering at them over brown framed glasses. The smug grin on his face made an appearance when he caught sight of Shouta. 

“Eraserhead. I hope you’re not here to run around my bookstore again.” The man purred, eyes glinting. 

Shouta narrowed his eyes, the left one still twitching. The man turned to glance at the rest of their group, freezing when Arenea pulled down her hood. Then his smile softened, something Shouta hadn’t thought was possible. Smug and irritating wasn’t the man’s only expression? There was even sadness in his brown eyes as he carefully tucked a bookmark between the pages and stepped away from the desk. 

Arenea immediately barreled into his arms, arms wrapping around his neck as he lifted her up with a grunt. 

“You’ve gotten so big, baby spider.” He said as he carried her through the maze of books, ignoring the four of them trailing after. Hitoshi glanced at the large shelves filled with beautiful covers, glancing between Shouta and the man. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Had to kill AFO then I got arrested.” The kid mumbled into his shoulder. 

“Every bit your father’s daughter aren’t you? How’re the heroes treating you?”

Arenea didn’t answer, tightening her grip on him. He ran a hand through her hair, arriving in what Shouta could only describe as a mini clearing among the forest of shelves. There were heavenly looking chairs with fuzzy blankets and piles of pillows scattered around. He dropped the kid down onto an egg shaped hanging chair that swung without even a creak. 

“I’m going to go make some hot chocolate, tea and coffee.” He assured before disappearing between two shelves on the opposite side of where they’d come from. His head poked back through a few minutes later, pointing to Hitoshi, Hizashi, and Shouta. “You three come help me.” 

Shouta opened his mouth to protest, not wanting the kids out of their sight, but Hizashi shook his head. Shouta followed his husband’s gaze towards the two young criminals, Shoto having laid down by the chair Arenea was curled up in. Right. They probably needed a moment together. 

He let Hizashi tug him towards the old man, Hitoshi following behind. The man’s voice dropped to a whisper once they were behind the shelf. “You two can stay here, just be quiet and let them work it out. I’m still stealing the kid. An old man needs help to carry everything, you know?” 

“Sure.” Hitoshi agreed before Shouta could protest. 

The man shot him a grin, and there was the smugness again, leading his son further into the bookstore. 

Arenea let out a teary hiccup. Then another. Quickly she dissolved into sobs, Shouta having to stop Hizashi from heading back to comfort her. 

“It’s not fair.” The kid snapped between cries. Shoto remained quiet, letting her continue. “Why do you and- and Hitoshi get your family but I don’t? It’s not fair!” She curled up, her head resting on her knees so she could glare at Shoto. He didn’t even blink, maintaining eye contact. She started sobbing again, tears streaming down cheeks. “Why- why am I the one who gets left behind?”

“Do you think I’m going to leave you behind?” Shoto asked softly. 

“Duh.” She whispered.

“Why would I-”

“Once the program is over you’ll go back to your family with your siblings.” The kid whimpered, clearly spiraling. Her hands tangled in her hair, pulling at the knots formed by the webs sticking together. “And you’ll move on and- and get a job and boyfriends and I’m gonna still be here! Then they’ll realise that I’m not normal and they’ll toss me back out.” Shoto sat up, reaching out to grab the side of the chair rocking with the movements of her sobs. “I don’t want to run ag- again…”

“Arenea I would rather dress up like Endeavour and become his sidekick than leave you behind.” Shoto said with more gravitas than he’d ever used. He reached out to pull her hands in his, ignoring the panicked spiders crawling rapidly around her. “Dabi feels the same. Keigo would rather go back to the commission. Shiggy would start his Animal Crossing island over from scratch. Everyone in the League would face their worst fears if it meant protecting you.”

“I’m not part of the League-”

“No but you’re still part of our family.” Shoto interrupted, gaze stern. “That isn’t going to change just because we’re going to grow older. You’re not going to stop being my little sister just because one day I’ll graduate from this stupid program. I’d burn it all to the ground if they tried to kick you out.”Arenea sobbed again. Shoto climbed up on the chair, pulling her into his arms and wrapping around her like an octopus. “What made you think any of that?”

“I mi-miss dad.” She hiccuped against his skin. “I- I tried to spy on him but I couldn’t find him and I know he’s still out there since- since I’m… But I can’t see him!” Shoto started running his fingers through her hair, gently working out the knots. It helped sooth her, her sobs and hiccups growing quieter. “Then you got so excited about your real siblings and Hitoshi has his dads- and I wanted the League but they’re gone and everything is changing-”

“I thought you liked living with Hizashi and Shouta?” 

“I do but- but everything is changing again!”

“It feels like when your dad left?” He asked. Arenea sobbed again, nodding against his neck. “How long has it felt like this?” 

“After- after killing AFO. I thought… I thought Shiggy would hate me even if it was his plan.”

Shoto exhaled slowly. “AFO was going to kill you. You understand that right? Shiggy would never hold it against you.” Arenea stayed quiet. “Arenea you’re one of us. We stick together against the world, remember?”

“I thought it was against heroes?” Arenea whispered. Shoto could feel her smile. 

“Same thing if you ask Dabs.” He said with a huff. “Think they’re gonna come back soon or continue eavesdropping?”

Arenea giggled. Hizashi and Shouta came back behind the bookstore owner and Hitoshi, all taking seats with their drinks. Shouta’s eye went back to twitching when he realised his coffee was made just the way he enjoyed it, Hitoshi shaking his head when he looked at him. 

The old man joined the two teens on the egg chair, their corner of the bookstore filling with laughter as Shoto and Arenea protested being squished so he could squeeze in. They were both passed mugs of hot chocolate, topped with sprinkles, marshmallows, and whipped cream. 

They drank in silence, Hizashi relaxing the more Arenea did. She even smiled brightly a couple times, giggling when Shoto looked up to reveal his whipped cream mustache. 

Before they left the man stopped by the register, pulling out a beautiful old hardcover. He crouched down despite the way his knees cracked. 

“Your dad loves you.” He said firmly, handing over the book. She held it carefully, as if worried it would turn to dust if she even tightened her hold on it. “I know he’d want you to have his copy of it.” 

Late that night Hizashi would smile when he peaked into the two teen’s shared room, watching Arenea curled up against Shoto’s side as he read the book. Dante’s Inferno was an interesting choice, but he decided not to comment. Just stayed by the door listening to Shoto read the annotations left on the margins of the book, until Shouta came to gently pry him away and to their own bedroom.

Chapter Text

“I didn’t ask last time but umm… Are all schools this… big?” Arenea asked Monday as Shouta and Hizashi led them to the teacher’s lounge unethically early in Shouta’s opinion. Curse Nedzu and his meetings. 

“No.” Shoto replied. “UA is just extra.”

“Is this your first time in a school, little listener?” Hizashi asked. 

Arenea nodded. Shoto snorted. 

“You’ll be smarter than Dabi now.”

“Hey! At least I’m smarter than Shiggy!”

“He put aluminium in the microwave. Then though the fire was normal and how it cooked. The bar is in hell.”

“I’m sorry Shigaraki what?” Hizashi squawked, staring at both of them. 

Shoto sighed, staring right through the hero as if reliving some horrifying event. “Kurogiri had to leave to do errands for a day.” He said solemnly. “It was a long day.”

“We weren’t that bad.” Arenea defended, rolling her eyes. 

“You and Keigo were eating raw chicken and let Twice and Toga try it when they asked.” Shoto replied exasperated. “They got salmonella.”

“How did Keigo forget-” Hizashi started, cutting off when Shoto turned his attention to him. 

“I don’t know, but maybe it has to do with him watching his boyfriend try to fry an egg. On himself. With his quirk. Egg was dripping into his skin grafts. It was horrible.”

“We got banned from the kitchen!” Arenea added helpfully. 

“Maybe we should make that a rule at the apartment as well.” Shouta whispered. 

“I didn’t do anything!” Arenea complained. “I was collateral!”

“Apart from actively attacking everyone while cooking menemen-”

“Dabi was trying to prove his quirk was quicker than the stove, Toga kept trying to steal the tomatoes, Shiggy tried to add hot sauce for some reason when he cries anytime something is spicy, Twice tried to add more salt and pepper, and Spinner kept trying to add spices too because he was mad at Shiggy!”  

“I never said you weren’t justified.” Shoto grinned, dodging out of the way of her punch. 

“Would you like to show me how to make menemen with me for dinner tonight?” Hizashi asked before violence could erupt. “I haven’t heard of it before.”

Arenea’s eyes lit up. “Yes!” She cheered, before listing off all of the ingredients needed. 

They paused when they reached the door of the lounge, Arenea stared up at the towering door. 

“Why is everything in this place so large?” She grumbled. 

“Isn’t your uncle a giant?” Shoto asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Arenea didn’t respond, glaring harder at the door. Hizashi chuckled, gently pushing the two of them aside so he could enter the room. All of the teachers were around the central table used for meetings, Nedzu sitting at the head. Nemuri perked up when the teens shuffled in, Shouta behind them. 

Shoto’s smile had vanished, replaced by his usual emotionless mask. Arenea was standing slightly behind him, peering around his shoulder to examine all of them as Hizashi and Shouta stayed by their side. 

The moment her eyes landed on Ectoplasm they brightened again. Hizashi watched as she took a few steps forward without seemingly realising, eyes wide and mouth opened in awe. Ecto - who had never been looked at by a child with anything other than fear - melted immediately. The man pulled the collar of his coat away and pushed his chair back, walking towards the teen. 

“Hi.” He said awkwardly once he’d gotten closer. “I’m Ectoplasm. It’s lovely to meet you.”

“You're like me.” Arenea whispered, before spinning around to face Shoto with a hilariously betrayed expression. “You didn’t tell me there was someone like me!”

“I have a teacher whose quirk makes him look scary.” The little shit said, fighting back a smirk. 

Arenea huffed but turned back to Ectoplasm, eyes still shining. “I’m Arenea! You look really cool.” 

Ectoplasm grinned, looking seconds away from crying. “You look cool too.”

“Really?” The kid asked. She then turned to Hizashi, asking him to cover his eyes. He did so quickly, waiting for Shouta’s all clear. 

Arenea’s smile grew bigger when Ectoplasm didn’t even flinch at the sudden addition of pupils and the spiders that quickly made their way across her body. He reached out to pet one of them, launching Arenea into a spiel about it while it crawled around the hero’s hand. 

“As lovely as this is, I do want to get everyone’s introductions out of the way before your first day of classes start!” Nedzu interrupted cheerily. Ectoplasm nodded, hesitantly patting the kid’s head before heading back to his seat with some reluctance. “Ectoplasm teaches mathematics,” Arenea started bouncing on her toes, Shouta ducking into his scarf to hide his grin. “We then have Cementoss who teaches literature.” 

The man in question smiled softly, waving a large hand at Arenea. 

“Vlad King who is Class 1B’s teacher.” 

Arenea’s eyes started sparkling when she noticed the man’s fangs, flashing a smile that showed hers as well. Shouta had never seen the man soften so quickly, watching with amusement as he turned away with an embarrassed flush. 

“He’s the one Toga really likes right?” Arenea whispered to Shoto, who nodded. 

“Thirteen.” The space hero waved, the suit making Arenea giggle and whisper “marshmellow”.

“I’m Recovery Girl but you can call me Chiyo dear. Please come to my office this week for a check up, I doubt you’ve gotten one before.”

“We’ll bring her down Chiyo, promise.” Hizashi told the old woman. 

“You boys better.”

“That’s the one that hits people with her cane.” Shouta heard Shoto whisper to Arenea. 

“Powerloader who runs the support course and Snipe who teaches third years.”

“Nice to meet ya.” Snipe tipped his hat in greeting while his husband simply nodded. 

“Then we have Lunch Rush.”

“You can come and see me whenever you need any food alright? And let me know if you have any quirk specifications, I’ll cook you something just for you.”

Ryo spoke up next. “I’m Hound Dog, the school therapist. You can schedule a meeting with me if you ever want to talk about anything.”

Arenea pointed towards Shoto, expression serious. “Can I schedule a meeting for him?”

“Hey!”

Ryo barked out a laugh. “Of course. Let me know the details.”

“I don’t need therapy-”

“And I’m Midnight, but you darling can call me Auntie Nem.” Nemuri purred, steamrolling over Shoto’s protests. 

Arenea narrowed her eyes on her. “Are you the one that adopted Midoriya?” 

Nemuri paused before glancing towards Shoto who was turning red. She looked back at Arenea’s grin and matched it with pure glee. “Oh yes. That’s why I said you could call me that.”

“I’ll consider it. I’ve got lots of aunts and uncles already.” Arenea told her. 

Nemuri smirked. “Guess I’ll have to work to earn my title then.” 

“Finally we have Yagi!” Nedzu looked towards the skeleton man who’d been staring out the window for the entire meeting. “Yagi, would you like to say something?”

“The girl shouldn’t be here.” The man grumbled. 

Arenea wilted, taking a step back so that she was closer to Shoto. All of the staff turned to him, Ectoplasm, Vlad, Nemuri, Shouta, and Hizashi openly glaring at the man.

“I don’t see why!” Nedzu cheered, a slight edge to his voice. “Considering that she has no criminal record, no league affiliation, and took down your biggest nemesis! In fact I’m surprised you haven’t thanked her for taking that burden off of young Mirio!”

“Her quirk is dangerous.” Yagi hissed. 

“I’ve got great control.” Arenea protested while Shoto let out a quiet growl.

Yagi, sensing the rising tension, didn’t say anything else. He kept his eyes away from Arenea though. 

“So.” Nemuri spoke up, trying to relax the atmosphere. She turned to Arenea with a smile, placing her chin on her hand. “Your quirk allows you to create spiders right? Can you spy through them?” Shouta really didn’t like the mischievous grin that spread across Arenea’s face as she nodded. “Anything embarrassing you can share with us about those idiots?” She nodded towards Hizashi and Shouta. 

“I like you.” Arenea decided, before diving away from Shouta’s capture scarf with a bright laugh. 

Chapter Text

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Arenea grumbled as she sat down on top of her desk at the back of the classroom behind Shoto, looking at the gigantic door again. 

“Are you going to let that go?” Shoto asked, turning his seat around so he was facing her. 

“It feels intentionally designed to mock me.” Arenea glared. 

“Do you think High Specs lets Nedzu know what he can do in the future to get certain outcomes?” Shoto mused. “Also Nedzu is considerably shorter than you.”

“He’s not shorter than a Goliath Birdeater and that’s the largest of the spiders currently feeling tiny.” Arenea hissed. As if on cue a Goliath Birdeater crawled out from underneath the hoodie Nedzu had approved instead of the school uniform since the texture of it messed with Arenea’s skin. Shoto watched as the giant made its way to her hand, legs hanging off and body resting in her palm. “I’m going to let them explore since Hizashi isn’t here.” She warned. 

“Sure, but maybe keep the peacock parachute spiders from jumping down on our classmates.” Shoto pointed to one that was already making its way up a shelf, bright blue fuzz standing out against the dark wood. 

There was a behavioural pattern with the spiders. Orb weaver and wasp spiders stayed on Arenea if they were around unless she specifically requested a web from them. One the aforementioned was staying between her eyes, red legs kept carefully away from her eyeball. Tarantulas tended to stay underneath her skin so that they were only visible if you looked close enough. Wandering, wolf and jumping spiders explored, while crab spiders tended to only make an appearance when there was flora nearby. Those were his personal favourites. 

He could tell Arenea was nervous based on how many venomous or painful spiders were making an appearance. Peacock parachute spiders were usually the ones she kept on a tight leash, and they were pretty rare. Japanese weather wasn’t pleasant to them, so they rarely connected with Aranea’s webbing system. Wolf spiders straight up didn’t spin webs, and neither did Goliath Birdeaters. Those usually didn’t care much about hanging around Arenea, so the fact that they were here was a testament to how much her quirk was leaking out into webbing around the world. 

Arenea at least kept that last one in her hand instead of letting it walk around. Sure it wasn’t venomous, but he knew from experience that it tended to freak people out more because of its size. He kept a close eye on the five peacock parachute spiders now perched on the bookshelf. They weren’t typically venomous, but they could bite and also liked jumping off of high places. He’d like to avoid screaming at eight in the morning. 

Thirty minutes exactly before the start of homeroom Iida and Yaoyorozu walked into the classroom. Shoto groaned when he noticed Iida immediately palling at the spiders currently exploring the floor, eyes following them to Arenea.

“Quirk usage isn’t allowed outside of designated times! Especially not as part of the reform program!” The teen shouted, making his way towards them. Shoto turned to glare at one of the bright blue spiders approaching the edge. Then gently swatted a wandering spider perched on his desk that was raising its front legs. “That is also not the UA uniform! I insist you change at once, it is inappropriate to defy the rules of such a great establishment-”

“Nedzu approved of her wearing what she wanted because she chose material that wouldn’t stick to her skin or make the spiders upset.” Shoto cut the teen off, pointing at the Goliath that had stood up from Arenea’s palm. “No.” He turned back to Iida. “Her quirk is passive and can’t be turned off.”

“They get antsy if they can’t explore new surroundings. I’ll reel them in.” Arenea promised, jumping off the desk (Iida opened his mouth to comment on it but decided it was useless now that she was off) to collect everyone crawling around the room. 

The Goliath moved to her shoulder, perching like a pet bird or a cat would. 

“I’ve never seen one so big.” Yaoyorozu said curiously. “What species is it?”

“Goliath Birdeater. They’re the largest known species of spider!” Arenea told her without looking back, easily climbing up the bookcase. She tuned Iida’s sputtering about it out as she lifted one of the spiders back onto her. They disappeared into the hole that formed. The four others were attempting a sneaky escape, making her groan. “You don’t even like Japan!” 

“You should probably collect the Kankuamo marquezi hanging out on Shouta’s desk too.” Shoto called, staring at the large fuzzy creature taking up space on the man’s keyboard. 

Arenea jumped down from the top of the shelf with ease, having scooped up the remaining four and rushed over. She held it like a misbehaving cat, muttering something too low for them to hear. It crawled underneath her shirt and vanished. 

“I did not notice how many of them decided to explore.” She grimaced as a group of wolf spiders hurried towards her, crawling into the holes opening and closing on her legs and arms. 

“You definitely have a few escaped jumping spiders.” Shoto pointed out, passing her the wandering spider that thankfully decided he wasn’t a threat. 

“That’s fine, they're small.” Arenea murmured, doing one last check. She rolled her eyes when she found another Kankuamo marquezi hanging around under Bakugou’s desk. “Really?”

“Leave that one there.” Shoto grinned. 

“I’m not letting it get hurt by his explosions.” She huffed and picked the spider up by the back of its “neck”, placing it on her back. It vanished underneath her hair. “Hopefully that’s the last of the big ones.”

“Is the Goliath staying?” Shoto asked. 

Arenea gave its head a pat. “Yeah. Until he decides he has better things to do, anyway.” She jumped back up on her desk. Iida immediately started chastising her for it, making Shoto grit his teeth. “Iida right? I like heights. Or being underneath things. Also I’m at the back of the class despite being shorter than all of you.”

“This is disrespecting our-”

“Is that a Goliath Birdeater?!” Arenea turned towards the doorway where Midoriya was standing, holding a notebook in his arms. She nearly toppled off the desk entirely when he suddenly rushed forward, opening his notebook. “That’s so cool! Does it travel through you like the others? If so, that would make your quirk similar to Yaomomo’s. Do they just crawl out from underneath your clothes? How many can you create at once? Do you have to eat like Yaomomo and Fatgum, or are they fueled another way? Is your diet different? How many spiders-”

The rest of Midoriya’s questions were suddenly muffled by Hitoshi placing his hand over his mouth, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. Arenea’s eyes were wide. Shoto grinned when he realised she’d startled so much that the orb weaver had crawled over one eye and that all of her pupils were visible. 

“When Shoto said you asked a lot of questions he didn’t tell me you didn’t breathe between them.” Arenea said dryly. Patting the Goliath’s head. Midoriya’s shoulders slumped slightly. He opened his mouth, probably to apologise, but Arenea started speaking again before he could. “Yes. This one’s name is Gollum. Yes it does, usually either my back or my stomach. Yes they do. There’s no limit…”

“You just missed the chaos. She let them explore and we aren’t sure she collected all of them.”

“We’re sure I didn’t, I can tell some of them made it to the vent but they’ll behave. Probably.” Arenea mumbled distractedly, counting the questions she’d answered on her fingers. “No, I don't need to eat to fuel them. They aren’t created, my quirk just links my body to their web so they can travel through to me then back to where they were. Some of them just use it to escape predators. Umm… my diet is a little different I guess? I can usually eat everything normally but sometimes if I’m focusing on the consciousness of a spider then their consciousness gets thrown in my body so they only eat what they usually would. Does that count? And I know all spider species plus some I’ve invented!”

She grinned, obviously proud to have remembered all the questions. Midoriya was grinning too, making Shoto and Hitoshi squint at the pure sunlight from it. He was quickly scribbling all of the answers down. 

“I have so many more questions to ask you.” He warned, pointing his pencil at her. 

“You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into.” Shoto deadpanned. 

“I’ll answer them whenever because Shoto likes you.” Arenea told him, ignoring Shoto glaring at the back of her head and willing his quirk to light her on fire. 

“I like him too!” Midoriya beamed. 

“Arenea! You’re here!” Kaminari pushed back some of their other classmates that were staying near the front of the classroom. She grinned, pulling the card he’d given her out of her pocket. “You have it with you! It has to be your good luck charm now! You have to give me something to be mine, you’re now the only one who can.” He then collapsed dramatically against the desk next to Shoto’s. “Seriously. I need all the help I can get. I didn’t even pass the final exam!”

“I’ll get you something.” She promised with a giggle. “Oh also look!” She held up her hand, letting a black and yellow garden spider come out. Kaminari reached out without hesitation, letting it crawl onto his own hand despite how menacing its legs looked. “It reminded me of your hair.”

Shoto watched, fascinated, as the other teen nodded seriously before holding it up to his stripe. He saw multiple of their classmates shivering, tracking the spider anxiously. Kaminari just kept smiling. 

“Do we match?! Oh oh someone needs to take a picture! Sero! Get a picture!” He turned towards the tape teen, who shrugged and took out his phone. “Send it to me!” Kaminari instructed with a bright grin before gently holding the spider back towards Arenea. 

“You can name her if you want.” She told him as she collected the spider, running a finger down its back. “She’s new.”

“Pikachu!” Kaminari decided immediately. “She’s now called Pikachu!”

Arenea nodded, holding the spider up to her face. “Hear that? Now if I say Pikachu it means I’m talking to you.” The spider crawled up onto her cheek, making her laugh. “I think she likes it.”

“Awesome!” Kaminari grinned, before looking towards the door. “Class is going to start so I should get in my seat. I’m at the front. But we have to eat lunch together today, okay? No hiding like Shinsou.” 

He ran off before she could reply, sitting down right as Shouta came into the room, a spider tangled in his hair. A few people screamed, pointing at it. To be fair it wasn’t one of the less noticeable ones. It was a Hawaiian Happy-Face Spider, which contrasted quite neatly with their teacher’s hair. From the way Arenea winced, shoulders rising she hadn’t actually meant for that to happen. She jumped off her desk again, running across the room to scoop it into her hand. 

“Sorry, I didn’t notice it escaping.” She whispered. 

Shouta gave her head a quick pat of reassurance, hiding his smile as the tension left her shoulders in his scarf. She scurried back to her desk, perching on top. 

Shouta didn’t comment on Arenea clearly drifting as he handled housekeeping during homeroom. Shoto was quick to elbow her when Hizashi came in, and she hid the Goliath that had been hanging in her desk while the other spiders vanished into her body. 

Hizashi gave them all a pop quiz to make sure things had stuck during the break, earning him groans. He then sat in the back with Arenea, supervising while also having a conversation with her in English. She told him she was a bit rusty since it had been a while, so it helped to actually talk to someone else in it. At some point they started switching each sentence between Japanese, Chinese, and English. The rapid fire conversation distracted some of the class, and others didn’t speak up when they were done to keep watching. It ended when Arenea switched to that mysterious fourth language. The confused silence that ensued made Bakugou break, and he started creating small explosions bringing Hizashi’s attention back to the rest of the class.

Modern Lit was next and that was when things started going downhill. 

The teachers had been warned at the earlier meeting that Arenea couldn’t read, but the students hadn’t been. Arenea didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with so many people. Cementoss discreetly passed her an audiobook version of the book along with the actual book, before deciding to read aloud.

Arenea mostly stayed quiet. Analysing literature was something she’d grown up with, but she’d never done it for herself. Mostly she was focusing on trying to piece together what words went with what spelling, frowning down at the book when she realised she’d lost the page they were on. 

Asking Shoto felt too noticeable, so she pulled the earbud out and started listening to the audiobook, fastforwarding through to find the place they were and the page number. Cementoss noticed but didn’t comment, though he did helpfully start stating them. She gave him a thankful quivering smile before flipping to that page, playing it from the beginning so that she could follow along slowly. She was at the back of the class, so it was fine. Nobody was going to notice. 

Until Cementoss started an analysis at the end of the next page, making the mistake of allowing the students to pick who went next. 

It wasn’t even malicious. Kirishima, having noticed that nobody had called on Arenea to give her thoughts the entire class, decided to do the manly thing and do it. Sure he didn’t particularly like her for what she’d done to Bakubro, but he was training to be a hero. So he turned around, spotting her hunched over her book, and called out her name. 

All eyes in the class turned to her. Shoto immediately swore. 

Spiders were far from the top of the food chain. And like everyone in the middle, they were both predator and prey. Which meant certain prey instincts. Namely absolutely recognising the sudden onslaught of eyes acknowledging them while they were unfocused and unguarded as a threat. 

With the quirk canceling bracelet around his ankle he couldn’t exactly throw up a wall of ice between them either, so he could just watch the trainwreck with a grimace. 

Arenea tensed. The combination of her growing frustration at not being able to keep up with what spoken words went with what written words and the extreme focus to try and keep track made her instincts ten times worse. When she suddenly felt the increase of eyes she looked up so fast it would have been painful had she had organs of any sort, fangs slipping out and spiders pouring out until she couldn’t see buried underneath them. 

The screaming snapped her out of it quickly, and she drew her quirk back as soon as she could, then immediately regretted it when she saw the pale faces of most of the class. The only exceptions were Cementoss, Shoji, Tokoyami, Midoriya, Shinsou, Shoto, and Kaminari.

Arenea forced her fangs away, swatting at some of the wasp and orb weaver spiders refusing to leave while she was distraught. She looked down at her book, the words blurry now on top of just being unrecognisable. The audiobook had continued on, now ten or so pages past where she was. 

Shoto didn’t say anything, but he pushed his chair back so it bumped the desk. Gollum crawled out, climbing up to settle on her lap. She ran her hand through its hair, letting her own fall in front of her face to form a shield. 

Cementoss did his best to move the class along, making a mental note to apologise at the end of the day. When lunch arrived Class 1A quickly made its way out, leaving behind Shinsou, Shoji, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Kaminari, and Shoto. 

Yaoyorozu eyed all of them, and Arenea who was trying to hide her trembling and failing, before speaking up. “I’ll go grab food for all of us. I’m sure no one will mind if we eat lunch here. Any requests?” 

They all gave their orders. Katsudon for Midoriya. Spicy ramen for Shoji. Cold soba for Shoto. Yakitori for Kaminari. Arenea quietly asked for Kafteji. Yaoyorozu had to look it up before leaving, but she nodded and walked off. 

“Sorry about the way the class reacted.” Shoji said quietly, taking a seat in Satou’s place. 

“Are you feeling like prey right now?” Shoto asked softly. Arenea nodded. “We’ll stay but won’t look at you, okay? You can join the conversation whenever you feel ready.”

They did just that, thanking Yaomomo (as she reminded Shoto) when she came back in with their food. Gollum stayed on Arenea’s lap, letting himself be pet while she ate with one hand. Halfway through lunch she brushed her hair back, her smile back as she listened to Midoriya talk about a new idea he had to help with Kaminari’s quirk. Shoto nudged her plate towards her, getting a grateful nod as she started taking small bites. 

“You should build up tolerance instead of going for immediate attacks that short circuit you.” Arenea interjected at one point, voice steady. Kaminari looked up at her. “Short low burst. Then more. It’s how people worked up to my spiders’ venom.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t go all out?” Kaminari asked nervously. “I’d fall behind in class.”

Arenea frowned. “Electricity can be small and dangerous.”

That launched Midoriya into a spiel about electricity that Kaminari listened to with wide eyes, grabbing his phone to make notes. Shoto noticed that the picture from this morning was now his wallpaper right before he opened his notes app. 

Combined science went fine. Arenea was extremely confused the entire time, and Shoto had to glare at Iida when it looked like he was going to make a comment on her lack of note taking, but otherwise it flew by. Thirteen was a nice teacher to have for the period (combined science usually alternated between them, Powerloader, and a guest teacher). 

Then came heroics. 

Chapter Text

They were doing Battle Trials 2.0. 

Arenea sat in the back furthest away from the screens in the observation room. All Might was ignoring her, which she didn’t mind. There was something about his quirk that set her teeth on edge. (It felt the same as when she was near All For One but dimmer, a pull she remembered from when she was younger. Except back then it had come from her dad, so it had felt like warmth and safety. This one felt like curiosity and cold, something lingering when it shouldn’t. So she stayed away.) 

Arenea didn't particularly care about any of it, so she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. The first two teams came and went, Arenea tuning them all out. 

The third and fourth teams to go were Bakugou and Uraraka facing off against Hitoshi and Tsu. Arenea didn’t particularly care about watching them go at it either, so she continued napping. 

Until she suddenly got a glimpse of pipes and spiders running away from it. 

Her eyes snapped open, turning to the screens. Bakugou was in one of the buildings, guarding the middle while Uraraka kept the bomb safe on the floor below. A good strategy considering Shoto said Hitoshi liked coming in through rooftops (more proof for the Aizawa love child theory). Sure enough she could see him slowly creeping his way down while Tsu headed to the front entrance. 

She shot up, rushing towards All Might. He didn’t acknowledge her as she slid by his side. 

“You have to stop the exercise, there’s a gas leak and Bakugou will ignite it.” She hissed quietly. 

All Might set his jaw in a straight line, eyes still fixed on the screen. His hands made no move towards the control panel, and she couldn’t remember if the students knew how to communicate with it-

Hitoshi was only two floors away from Bakugou. 

She didn’t let herself think, running out of the observation room. Ignoring All Might’s voice calling her back as she made her way through the fake city (the size of everything still felt mind boggling and left her feeling tiny) was easy. Once she got to the correct building she didn’t bother with the door, grabbing a pipe and easily making her way to the correct floor. 

Hitoshi took one step into the room, freezing when he noticed Arenea climbing her way through the window. 

“What the fuck-” Bakugou growled as he spun around, hands sparking. 

Arenea grabbed him before he could finish, shoving him towards the window just as the sparks touched the gas. Hitoshi stumbled backwards as the explosion rocked the building, the room lighting on fire more quickly than should have been possible in her personal opinion. 

“Spider web out the window! Jump!” Arenea yelled from somewhere in the flames. 

Hitoshi cursed, taking the steps two at a time. He saw Bakugou launching himself out of the window Arenea had tossed him towards, using his explosions to land safely. Hitoshi wrapped his scarf around a pipe, propelling himself down. 

A second explosion made him lose his grip. He screamed as he fell, clenching his eyes shut. 

The agony and darkness from the ground never hit. Slowly he cracked one eye open, meeting the eyes of a chubby spider. Blinking he turned his gaze down, staring at the large web attached to the other buildings and acting like a safety net. 

“Shinsou!” Uraraka and Tsu rushed over, helping him climb out of the webbing that stuck to his costume. 

They turned as a third explosion thundered in the fake city, watching as the top half of the building collapsed inwards. Hitoshi paled, looking around in a panic for a sign of white hair. Dad was running towards them, his face paler than ever as he stared at the building. Pops was right behind him, Nedzu perched on his shoulder. 

“Hitoshi!” Pops collapsed to his knees, checking him over while Nedzu asked the girls if they were alright. 

“Where’s Arenea?” Hitoshi asked, shoving his Pops away to stare at Dad who was watching the growing flames. The man didn’t answer, his shoulders shaking. “Dad where’s-”

“I’m here.” A voice coughed from behind the burning building. They all turned to watch Arenea stumble towards them. Her webbing was black, soot sticking to them. Some patches seemed to have burnt or melted away slightly, holes being attended by a combination of tarantulas and orb weavers. The spider that had been staring at him rushed towards her. “I’m fine Wind, thanks for saving him.” 

She swayed a bit to the left, eyes closing for a moment too long. Shouta walked over, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder before carefully lifting her up in his arms. 

“Mind helping patch me up?” She tiredly mumbled to the brown spider tapping her nose. It seemed to almost nod before heading over to her neck which had been burnt so badly half of it was missing. 

“What kind of spider is that?” Shouta asked, trying to get her to stay conscious as he started running to the observation room where Recovery Girl had stayed. 

“Darwin's bark spider. They have the strongest webs.” She muttered. 

“Quick thinking.” He praised softly, even if a part of him wanted to yell at her for disappearing in the building. They were going to have to talk to their therapist, because for a terrible moment all Shouta had been able to think about was Oboro- “How did you get out?”

“Vents. Webs burn a lot less than you’d expect.” She yawned, burying her head in his scarf. “Found that out when Endeavour tried to light me on fire.” 

“He what?” Shouta hissed, but the kid had passed out, hands and legs curling as much as possible. 

Making a mental note to ask Shoto about it and bring it up to Nedzu, he accelerated his pace again. Recovery Girl met him at the door, instructing him to lay Arenea down on the stretcher being held by two med bots. 

“I’m going to see if my quirk will work on her.” Recovery Girl told him, pressing a kiss to the girl’s forehead. 

They frowned when there was no change, apart from the tarantulas hissing at them. A few of the other spiders perched on their back legs in threat until they backed away, resuming their work patching up the webbing. 

Shoto pushed forward. The spiders didn’t react to his approach, letting him pull himself up on the side of the stretcher. He winced at the darkened webbing, running a hand through her hair. When he pulled it away his hand was black with ash.

“Class dismissed!” Nedzu told the frozen class as he and Hizashi got back into the room: Uraraka, Tsu, Shinsou, and an oddly quiet Bakugou behind them. “All Might I’d like to have a word with you in my office!” He added with fake cheer, eyes slitted and dangerous. 

The number one hero hunched in on himself under that and Shouta’s glare, scurrying out of the room. Hizashi turned away from Arenea, hands shaking. 

“I’m taking her down to the medbay to supervise.” Recovery Girl told them. Turning to Shoto she narrowed his eyes at his glare, grabbing onto Arenea’s hand. “Lay down mister, you’ll fall otherwise.”

His glare lessened. Leaning back he curled up against Arenea’s side, chastising her under his breath as the medbots carried them out. Bakugou, Uraraka and Tsu followed after a moment, heading the opposite way to the lockers. It left the Yamazawa’s alone together. 

Shouta’s breath hitched as he wrapped Hitoshi in a tight hug, clinging out his son’s hair. Hizashi rubbed their backs as Hitoshi clung to Shouta just as fiercely, shaking. 

“We’re okay.” Hizashi whispered. “All of us are alive. No one died in that building.”

“I’m going to kill All Might.” Shouta hissed. 

“Not if I get to him first, babe.” Hizashi’s grin was tinged with bloodlust. 

They stayed there for a while longer, until Shouta could pull himself away without feeling like he was watching his son’s hair disappear under a building and Hitoshi’s trembling died down. Hizashi took him back to class, letting Shouta head down to Recovery Girl’s office. 

“... I swear I’m going to get a message out to Keigo about what you just pulled. What were you thinking?!” He heard Shoto yell as he got closer to the door, pushing it open as quietly as he could. 

The two turned towards him for a moment before going back to glaring at each other. Arenea was sitting on the bed with her eyes narrowed. He realised there that her fangs were actually attached to a spider hiding inside of her mouth. It retreated when she spoke, then popped back forward when threatening Shoto. Shoto was standing by the side of the bed, looking down at her with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“All Might wasn’t going to do anything.” Arenea grumbled. “I’m pretty sure I’m the second coming of AFO to him. They could have died!”

“Did you learn nothing from the time Endeavour found you in his house!?”

“I learnt that I’m not very flammable.” Arenea snarked. Shoto pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not Dabi, Sho. I knew where the vents were, and I wasn’t going to burn into bacon bits.”

“I’m really really tired of watching people I care about get burnt! Did you even stop to think about how that could impact me? I thought I was seeing him- It was like watching you-”

Arenea lunged forward. Shoto caught her with ease, holding her tightly as he stumbled back and let himself collapse in the empty medical bed behind him.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. 

“I’m still letting Keigo know about your stunt.” Shoto grumbled. “You know he’ll tell Dabi who’ll tell the rest of the League. I swear I’ll burn the gates down to let them storm the school so they can lecture you if I have to.” He glanced down at his white uniform. “You’re getting soot all over my shirt.”

“Nedzu’s fault for choosing white as the colour of the uniform in a hero school.” Arenea grumbled, purposefully shaking her head like a wet dog to get more ash onto him. 

“Seriously. Never do that again.” He whispered. “Please.”

“Promise.” She whispered back, before pulling back and waving at Shouta. 

He finally stepped closer, ruffling both of their hair. Arenea leaned into the touch while Shoto grumbled half heartedly, pretending he wasn’t also leaning into it. 

“Are you feeling better?” He asked Arenea, who nodded and proudly showed her patched up neck. “Good. Let’s go then, we’re going back home. Hitoshi is staying the night.”

Arenea grinned, climbing up on Shoto’s back. He rolled his eyes but didn’t protest, adjusting his hold on her before following Shouta out of the school. 

That night, as Hizashi kept watch on the menemen in the pan that Arenea had shown him how to cook, Shouta pulled her aside. Shoto and Hitoshi were in the living room playing Mario Kart, which apparently Shoto was hilariously bad at from the way his son cackled and the other teen grumbled.

“Thank you.” Was all he could say as he patted her hair. 

She beamed at him, giving him a nod before running back into the kitchen. Shouta stayed in the doorway, watching her and Hizashi jam together to the music from the radio as they stirred the ingredients slowly. A jumping spider even came out to join the dancing, and Hizashi only froze for a moment before continuing. Hitoshi’s laughter grew louder as Shoto fell off the rainbow road yet again, cursing the map. He glanced towards a picture from high school hanging on the wall.

“Wish you could have met them, Boro.” He whispered. 

***

Somewhere further away in Japan, Kurogiri was cleaning glasses as he listened to the League members bicker about how to get their youngest members back. A smile spread across his newly unveiled face as he heard Dabi tease Shigaraki and Toga giggle along with Twice. 

Flashes of black and yellow, of amplified laughter and hesitant scarred hands, played in his mind. They’d been doing so since AFO dropped dead. He stared down at the glass in his hands. 

“Wish you could meet them.” He whispered. 

He didn’t know yet who those flashes belonged to, but he knew deep down that they would love his little family just as much as he did. Setting the glass down, he walked into the room, pulling Shigaraki and Dabi apart with practiced ease. Magne and Spinner grinned, making room on the battered couch for him to sit as he joined in on the plans. 

The League didn’t leave any of their true members behind afterall. Especially not their baby siblings. They weren't losing them. Not to the hands of villains, and definitely not to the hands of heroes. 

Chapter Text

Nedzu had never been good at letting things go, especially when the thing in question was a puzzle he hadn’t solved yet. 

So when the supposed child of a man he doubted would ever even consider having one (let alone raise them) showed up… Well he got curious. 

He was aware of the basics of the man’s quirk. The ability to steal other people’s quirks, much like All For One. Though with a specific set of rules that Nedzu had yet to figure out, much to his delight and frustration. The man had been a mystery Nedzu couldn’t crack for years, and here was a puzzle piece that seemed so different from the few he’d collected. It made his quirk itch. 

Arenea’s quirk wasn’t in the registry. There was no record of anyone with anything remotely similar in the time the man had been alive. So he expanded his search, looking for anything that might give him a lead as to what her origins were. The kid had let enough things slip for him to form a blurry picture. A sentient quirk with that level of autonomy? Unheard of. 

He found his answer, ironically enough, in an unguarded file forgotten by the HPSC. It was pure chance that it caught his eye. The death of an entire trafficking group operating under the HPSC’s nose, all of the victims returned with no memory of how they’d been set free. Hidden inside, among the names of hundreds of culprits, was his answer.  

No, Nedzu had never been good at letting things go. 

So when Arenea sat down across from him for their first one on one lesson together, he waited until the door shut behind Shouta before pushing a photo over to her without a word. 

She froze, staring down at the picture with wide eyes. Her hands started shaking as she backed up further into her seat, her control slipping and allowing more and more spiders to crawl out from her webbing. 

Nedzu should have stopped, but an unfortunate side effect of High Specs was that when he was close to finishing a puzzle he couldn’t do anything other than solve it by any means necessary. 

He should have made Shouta stay. The man would have forced him to stop, to remember that this was a child and not a pawn in a game he was playing. He hadn’t asked though, a decision he’d later regret when he pondered on the trust he may have broken. 

Right now, he picked up the file he’d printed out and began reading. 

Ozawa Jurou

Son of [Redacted] and Ozawa Aimi

Quirk: Build A Friend

Description: Build A Friend gives the user the ability to create a child by drawing and describing them in great detail. This includes everything from physical attributes, to personality, to their quirk. Jurou is able to give the child any quirk he desires. The user only has control over the child if they include that in their description before creation. Otherwise the child will grow and develop as any other child would. Their personality will also change over time depending on their environment and the description originally given. 

Note: While official classification of the child in question is sentient quirk, quirk specialist [Redacted] urged for another classification to be used considering the level of the child's sentience. He referred to the phenomenon as quirk manifested child, however the Ozawa's never pushed for this classification.

Jurou named the first manifested child Blue. Manifestation happened by accident while the user was drawing his imaginary friend of the same name. Blue seems to have an elephant mutation, is rainbow coloured, and has a very cheerful personality. Jurou and Blue seem to be extremely close, with Jurou referring to Blue as his best friend. [Redacted] advices the mother monitor for codependency developing. 

Update XX/XX/XX: Once the child is brought to life Build A Friend becomes inactive, and will only work again if the drawing of the child is destroyed or they are killed. This was discovered after the drawing of Blue was ripped by a classmate.

I, [Redacted], once again urge the HPSC to change the classification of the quirk and to consider the repercussions of allowing no consequence for harm against what is by all measures an actual child instead of a quirk. Jurou has re brought Blue back with minor changes, though it concerns me that Blue seems to remember what happened and was distraught by the experience. Jurou and Blue are both nine, this could have devastating impacts on their psyche if left unchecked. 

Update XX/XX/XX: I have growing concerns for the safety of Blue. Jurou was once again brought in after a classmate shoved Blue out a window, causing their death. Jurou has brought blue back, this time with wings in case of a repeat. With my recommendation Jurou removed any memory of the incident, but the lack of repercussions worries me greatly. It has also been brought up that Jurou's father has returned and is pushing him to experiment more with his quirk, which would mean destroying Blue repeatedly. What this could do to their and Jurou's well being should be investigated.

Additional Notes:

• Jurou was in charge of [Redacted] for [Redacted] in the trafficking organisation [Redacted]. He was found dead on [Redacted] at [Redacted] along with the entire ring. All victims were released. No trace of a child created by Build A Friend could be found, nor any trace of the drawing that Jurou was said to carry with him. 
• The autopsy revealed that Jurou’s quirk factor was gone.
• With his ties to [Redacted] the case is being closed.

When Nedzu looked up again Arenea was shaking like a leaf, clutching Gollum close to her chest like he was a plushie. Clarity came back to him slowly, his gnawing curiosity replaced by grief. 

He knew he’d have been the same had someone just thrown the names, quirks, and faces of the people that had experimented on him towards him. 

“I’m sorry.” He said earnestly, grabbing the photo and sliding it back into the file. “I should have approached this with more tact-”

“It was so easy to get him to answer questions.” Arenea cut off accidentally, her eyes glossed over. Her grip on Gollum tightened, but the giant spider didn’t seem to mind. “He was always so easy to get talking about his quirk, how perfect it was for what he did. He thought dad was going to be another investor. Charmed by the promise of one thing, funding what they were doing with the rest of the kids without knowing. Or maybe they didn't care, I don't know.” 

“He took the quirk?” Nedzu prompted softly. 

“He burned the paper when he realised what had happened. What was happening outside the office while dad got him talking.” She curled in on herself. “It hurt and it was so slow and- and I was scared that it would be the same thing but with someone different…”

Nedzu waited for her to continue, texting Hizashi to bring Shoto and wait outside the door. He knew he’d messed up, with how small and haunted the kid looked. He regretted not bringing this to Hound Dog, but there was no fixing it now. 

“Dad asked me if I- I wanted him to add anything specific.” She whispered. “He wanted to give me a choice. I told him I- I wanted to be scary. ‘Cause if I was scary nobody would hurt me or- or touch me again.” She started petting Gollum, sniffling. “I’d never been a baby before. He always needed me to be- he didn’t want to deal with a baby. But dad let me… I- I got to grow up and no one would look at me anymore.” She hiccuped, wiping her eyes. “Then dad was gone and- and not being looked at became worse.” 

“I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t want to kill anyone, I just wanted to be left alone. But he knew and he wanted my quirk, and I like being me. I don’t want to reset, I don’t- I won’t!” She looked up at him, her eyes painfully wide and terrified. 

“I promise you you won’t.” Nedzu shoved the file away. “You’re at UA now, you’ve got our protection. We’re separate from the HPSC. No one will know unless you tell them. You’re safe.” She placed her head against Gollum’s, the spider wrapping its front legs around her neck like a hug. “I have to ask, does anyone else know?”

“Dad. Shoto. The League knows too. And- and I think All Might guessed.”

Nedzu frowned. Yagi wasn’t the brightest, and he didn’t understand what connection he’d have to a trafficking group that had gotten annihilated by another criminal organisation before the HPSC could even catch wind of them. “Yagi?”

“Jurou was the right hand man of Dr. Garaki. He was the one who got people for him in the early days of the nomu project.” Arenea whispered. “Son of Shigaraki Aki… Also known as All For One.”

Jurou is also able to give them any quirk he desires.

What would have happened if the HPSC had learnt of this earlier? Or if AFO had been around to collect the quirk before Arenea’s dad? He shuddered to think what kind of child he’d have met. 

Arenea had been given the chance to be a kid like anyone else. It seemed like Build A Friend was unlikely to ever be used again, letting the kid actually grow up for once. Until something caught up to her dad, and the kid vanished, like a spiderweb casually dusted away by life. 

He saw so much of himself in her eyes.

Nedzu made a promise to himself that as long as the kid was under UA’s protection, he’d make sure he continued what her dad had started. 

He knew what Jurou’s crimes were. Had seen them listed in the file, read through them with precision and rage. Knew how they were acquiring the money for the “research” they conducted on the side, and hated the implication that came with Build A Friend. 

“Do you remember any of it?” He asked. 

“Only meeting dad.” Arenea said quietly, swaying slightly in exhaustion. “Nothing from before.”

Nedzu nodded, sighing. “I’ve called Hizashi and Shoto. You have the rest of the day off. I’m truly sorry for pushing. Please go see Hound Dog if you need.”

Arenea nodded numbly, staying in her seat. Shoto glared as soon as he saw the state she was in, picking her up and marching out of the office without a word. Hizashi frowned, eyes lingering on the file on the rat’s desk. 

“Later.” He promised. 

Sure enough, a meeting was scheduled for the next day while Arenea and Shoto slept in, Hitoshi in charge of getting them all to school. Hound Dog would lecture him about springing something like this up, Hizashi would yell at him while Shouta glared, and all of the staff (except for Yagi, noticeably excluded from the meeting) would walk out feeling queasy. 

If Shouta’s spare capture scarf found its way around the kid’s neck for the day no one commented on it. And if Hizashi snuck a hug at every opportunity, well no one did anything except for Kaminari who decided that he would join in providing comfort, even if he didn’t know why it was needed. 

When it all was done, he took great delight in destroying the file. 

Chapter Text

“We should have a girls’ night!” Mina exclaimed that Friday as they mingled before the end of homeroom. 

“Oh and we should have a boys' night!” Kirishima matched her energy immediately, grinning as he wrapped his arm around Bakugou’s shoulder. 

“It would be a good bonding activity.” Iida mused from his desk. 

“More socialising with you all?” Hitoshi groaned. “I’d rather die, thanks.”

“Oh come on Toshi! It could be fun!” Midoriya turned towards him, wide eyes fully weaponized and lips in a pout. Hitoshi groaned again, grumbling a fine under his breath while he turned away to hide his reddening cheeks. Midoriya then turned towards Shoto, who’d been quietly reviewing his Law & Ethics notes while Arenea leaned against his back. “Shoto you’ll come too right?”

He felt Arenea’s chuckles vibrate through his body as he ducked his head down. “I’m not sure I’m allowed-”

“Hey Dad!” Hitoshi called, deciding that if he was going down so was Shoto. “Can Shoto have a boys’ night with us?”

“As long as you all remain on campus I don’t care.” The man deadpanned, looking up at the clock in hopes homeroom would end soon. 

“Yeah!” Midoriya beamed, vibrating on his feet. “This is going to be fun!”

“Arenea, would you like to come to girls’ night?” Yaoyorozu asked politely, turning towards the girl who was still using Shoto’s back like a backrest. 

She glanced over. Jirou was standing by Yaoyorozu’s side looking impassive, but behind them she could see Uraraka looking awkward. The girl was looking everywhere except Arenea’s face. She’d kept the spiders to a minimum, but wasn’t bothering with reducing her pupils. It wasn’t super comfortable, and she didn't want her eyes to get tired at the beginning of the day. Hagakure was shifting anxiously beside her, messing with her gloves. 

“Wouldn’t the webbing be a problem, kero?” Tsu asked. "If we're doing self care?"

Mina frowned, examining Arenea’s face and nail-less fingers. “Umm… We could still do her hair?”

Arenea didn’t think Jirou meant to cringe, but they did. Uraraka winced as well, nervously eyeing the few spiders hanging out among her hair, swinging with the light movements of her head. She’d let it free today so that they could have fun adding to it, and was now regretting not asking Shoto to braid it tightly. 

The smile she gave them pulled uncomfortably on the webbing around her cheek. “Sorry, I’ve got some homework for Nedzu.”

Yaoyorozu frowned. “Homework for the entire weekend?” She asked. “We could help you study-”

“Noooo.” Mina wailed, collapsing against Uraraka’s side. Arenea flinched. “No homework! Girl’s night is supposed to be about self care! Not school!”

Midnight walked in before any of them could say anything else, cracking her whip to gain their attention. Shoto turned around, frowning as he whispered “You didn’t tell me you had homework.”

“I don’t.” She whispered back, keeping her eyes on Midnight as the teacher pulled up the slides for the day. 

They were talking about Da Vinci. She’d usually have been ecstatic, but right now she just wanted to crawl into a vent. 

“I can stay with you if you want…”

“And disappoint Midoriya?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Shoto rolled his eyes. “You could just come along, you know.”

“I think I’ll pass on whatever activity you guys decide on.” Arenea gave his shoulder a light shove, nodding back towards the front. “Focus.”

“You’ll infodump about whatever I miss anyway.” He teased, turning back around. 

“Shush.”

***

Hizashi frowned as Arenea walked into the apartment alone. He’d heard the 1A kids talking about their plans for tonight and tomorrow while crossing them in the hallway, and he didn’t like the fact that his kid wasn’t with them. 

“You’re not going to girls’ night little listener? Or boys’ night?” He asked when she walked into the living room and collapsed on the couch by his side, letting Fish climb up onto her lap. 

“Didn’t want to ruin it.” She shrugged, running her fingers through Fish’s fur. 

Hizashi frowned. “Why would you ruin it?” 

“They're doing self care. And probably gossip if they’re like Toga and Twice.” Arenea sighed. “I’m made of webs, and I think Uraraka’s still nervous around me. I also don't think they'd like to hear about the League, so I wouldn't add anything... It’s fine.”

Hizashi’s frown deepened. He opened his mouth to say something when there was a tentative knock on the door. Gently pushing Arenea back down when she tried to get up, he smiled. 

“Cat rule: you can’t disturb a cat that’s on your lap.” He told her seriously, pointing at Fish. Arenea blinked at him. “I’ll go get it.”

Kaminari was standing outside the door, holding a bag over his shoulder. He was out of his uniform and in black sweatpants with a bright yellow crop top. The teen grinned when he saw him, pointing finger guns up. “Hey Mic sensei! Is Arenea here?” 

“She’s in the living room.” Hizashi moved aside, letting the electric teen bounce into their apartment. He pointed to the guest slippers before popping his head back to see Arenea who was now lying on the couch glaring up at Fish, the cat innocently blinking down at her from air jail. “Kiddo? Kaminari is here for you.”

The kid set Fish down, pulling herself up with a confused furrow in her brows. Kaminari took that moment to skip into the room, jumping up onto the couch casually. She stared at him with wide eyes before glancing towards Hizashi, who just smirked and walked out to the kitchen. 

“Umm… hi?” She asked, glancing at the bag still on his shoulder, his outfit, then at the door. “Shouldn’t you… be at boys’ night?”

“They’re doing laser tag in one of the gyms.” Kaminari told her, pulling the strap of the bag off and setting it at the foot of the couch. “I’m not going against Bakugou like that outside of heroics.”

Arenea nodded slowly, glancing nervously at the bag. “So… you came here?”

“Yeah!” The teen grinned, unzipping the bag so that he could show her what was inside. 

Arenea’s face went blank staring at all of the nail polish in one clear case, along with the face mask kit and hair accessories. “I can’t do that.”

“I know but… I was thinking you could do it for me?” Kaminari asked, excitement suddenly diminishing. He bounced his leg anxiously, trying to get a read of her face. “I thought you could paint my nails and we could make the face mask together, then do each other's hair? Maybe watch a movie or play video games?” He kicked the bag lightly. “We don’t even have to do those if you don’t want but I asked Shoto and he said you liked painting his nails so...”

“You… want to do my hair?” Arenea asked, running a hand through it and letting the jumping spiders playing around in the strands crawl onto it. 

Kaminari started to fidget, playing with the fabric of his top. “Yeah! Anddd you can do mine too?” 

A small smile crept up on her face, this time the webbing naturally relaxing. “That sounds fun.”

The teen absolutely beamed. 

They pulled out the different nail polish colours first.

“I’m giving you full creative freedom!” Kaminari told her earnestly when she asked which colour they wanted, before pulling an eye mask out of the bag and pulling it over his eyes for the “suprise, duh!”.

Arenea giggled. She alternated yellow and dark purple as a base coat, blowing on it with puffed out cheeks to get it to dry while Kaminari filled her in on the important things to know about 1A. She wasn’t sure why she needed to know that Sero had weed, and thought saying so in a teacher’s apartment was strange, but since Hizashi said nothing she didn’t comment. Just made a mental note to keep her spiders away from his dorm. Her focus was mostly on the designs for his nails, having to hold the teen’s hands down when they started to fidget. 

“Okay! The protective coat is dry!” Arenea told him, letting go of their hands. She giggled as he immediately shook them before pulling the eye mask up to his forehead. “What do you think?”

Kaminari’s eyes grew wide as he stared down at his nails, admiring the intricate black spider web on the yellow nails and the white lightning bolts painted on the dark purple nails. “These are so cool! I have to show Mic sensei!” 

The teen bolted out of the room, nearly tripping over the carpet in their rush. Arenea trailed after at a much slower pace, dragging the bag across the room with her. Looking up from the papers he’d been grading while sipping tea, Hizashi let out a laugh as Kaminari’s hand was shoved into his eyeline. “I need you to back up so I can actually see them, little listener.” Kaminari pouted but placed their hand down. Hizashi’s eyes widened as he looked at the design before turning to Arenea. “These are really good!” He gushed. “You have to do my nails next time. They’ll make Nem so jealous.”

“Thank you.” She replied with a grin, pulling the bag more into the room. 

“Good thinking! Now to make a face mask because some of us are cursed with skin!” The teen cheered as he shot her a playful glare. Arenea stuck her tongue out in response. “Assistant! We need 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon coconut oil, ¼ ripe avocado, and 2 drops of lavender oil!”

“Why am I the assistant?” 

“Because I can’t ruin my beautiful nails!” Kaminari grinned, jumping up onto a stool. 

“Double that so I can have you too little listener.”

“This is exploitation.” Arenea grumbled with a barely concealed grin, pulling out a clear pouch with everything inside, including a bowl and a brush. 

Throwing everything together went smoothly, Hizashi tucking his grading away so he could avoid getting avocado on it. Arenea’s eyes were sparkling as she painted the mask on their faces, giggling as they got greener and greener with each stroke. 

“Ogres!” She giggled, setting the brush down in the sink with the empty bowl. 

“That’s the cost of lovely healthy skin.” Kaminari bemoaned. “Turning into an ogre for a couple hours.”

“Can’t relate.” Arenea snarked, gesturing to her pristine button free face. 

“Just for that I’m going to give you the worst hair ever!” Kaminari threatened, grabbing the bag. “Back to the living room!”

The two settled on the couch, Arenea turning her back to him. Kaminari grabbed the hair ties and clips he’d grabbed with a cry of triumph. 

“Why didn’t you just go to girls’ night?” Arenea asked after they were done brushing through the webbing softly, murmuring “that tickles” as the spiders started climbing on his hands. 

“I wanted… Hold still! I wanted to hang out with you.”

“Why?” Sushi jumped up on the couch, demanding pets. Kaminari tugged gently on the ends of her hair in reprimand as she moved to obey, making her giggle. 

“I like talking to you. Also you listen to me when I talk about Pokemon.” 

“Is that your bar?” 

“Yes. It’s a very high bar to cross.” Kaminari stuck his tongue out in concentration as he tied off the french braid he’d done. He’d used a hairpin with sparkly dark yellow thread hanging off at the top that he’d woven in, grinning proudly as he pulled the mirror up so she could see. “Ta-da!”

“Prettyyy. Now my turn!” She turned around so fast the braid whipped out, slapping Kaminari in the face. Kaminari whined slumping back onto the couch, his arm disturbing Sushi who hissed at them. Arenea ignored it, biting down her giggles as she picked the accessories she wanted. “Sit down! I want to braid your hair, Shoto’s is too short and Toga only did space buns!”

“Wounded with no remorse!” Kaminari wailed, but he did drag himself back into a sitting position. 

“I’m leaving your lighting bolt free.” She muttered, tongue sticking out too as she started carefully parting his hair. 

It took her much longer surprisingly, the hair slipping out of her grasp and unraveling all her hard work three times before the end. Once she finally tied it off she jumped off the couch, grabbing their hand to drag him back to the kitchen so Hizashi could see and appropriately praise it. 

Some strands were free, it was a bit too loose, but Kaminari loved it. 

They helped Hizashi cook dinner next, Kaminari and Hizashi filling the silence by exchanging UA gossip while Arenea absorbed all the information as if she was worried there would be a test on it eventually. All three ended up covered in flour as they finished making the pasta from scratch, dancing around the kitchen with the radio on while they waited for it to finish resting. Hizashi even managed to not freeze when Gollum joined, also ending up covered with flour. Kaminari ran off to grab a bow and placed it on top of the disgruntled spider’s head. Arenea giggled then coughed, a white cloud forming in front of her. 

Shouta came home from patrol an hour late to find the electric teen snoring loudly on the couch, end credits of The Covenant playing on screen. Tucked in his arms like an overgrown teddy bear was Arenea, with her limbs curled up. Hizashi was on the couch across from them, glasses askew and grading sliding down his stomach with each breath. 

The kitchen was a floury mess, but there was a new container in the fridge with a note that read: For Dadzawa <3. Inside was spaghetti arrabbiata for him to reheat. 

While the microwave buzzed he slipped back into the living room, grabbing blankets from their cupboard to toss over the teens and his husband. Hizashi would complain about his back tomorrow, but that was his fault for not going to bed. 

Papers stacked on the table, glasses folded in their case, and television turned off, Shouta returned to the kitchen. At least no one was awake to call him out on the soft smile on his face as he brought his food over to the armchair, watching Hizashi drool and listening to Arenea’s sleepy murmurs mixed with Kaminari’s snoring. 

The next day when Hitoshi and Shoto came home dead on their feet and sporting multiple bruises, the two would just look up from their multiplayer game of Poppy Playtime with matching devilish grins before turning back to the screen. 

“I think you made a good choice on coming over.”

“Absolutly- Agh help help I’m getting chased! Huggy you bitch!”

“Language!” 

Chapter Text

In most ways UA was completely different from Aldera. 

Now that enough time had passed Izuku could say that with confidence. His marks weren’t doctored, his teachers actively helped whenever he was struggling, and they enforced their no discrimination with a fierceness he’d never thought possible. Sure it would be nice if after the hundredth time they changed Bakugou’s punishment for calling him Deku, but he was just grateful that they kept doing it. For the first time in years, it felt like he could actually get through a school day without holding his breath. 

Sometimes though it felt like nothing had changed at all.

The 1A classroom was empty except for Arenea. She’d apparently taken to arriving earlier than all of them so her spiders could run loose for a couple hours, even on days where she was studying with Nedzu. She waved the second he walked in, not looking up from the book she was glaring at. It was a simple picture book, one he recognised from his own childhood that made sadness shoot through him. She had one earphone in, the other stuck in a web that glimmered in the soft morning sun. It went from her shoulder to her desk, a few jumping spiders resting on it. 

Gollum - who according to her complaints to Shoto had decided to become her emotional support spider after his habitat was destroyed - was settled on the top of her head. Her hair was braided in a hair crown, making it look like a nest for the relaxing spider. 

He was too busy staring at the giant spider to notice anything going on with his desk before he stood in front of it. The second his attention was drawn to it however, his vision blurred and his breathing hitched. 

There were quite a few spiders running around on it. That wasn’t unusual, the spiders jumped from desk to desk. What was was the large bouquet of twenty flowers laying innocently in the center and being explored by said spiders. 

Red spider lilies. 

And he’d woken up thinking that today was going to be a good day. 

Arenea looked up from her book with a worried frown, turning towards him. He flashed her a shaky smile, setting his backpack down by the side of his desk with trembling hands. She looked down at the admittedly pretty bouquet, before scanning the entire room. 

His shoulders rose up involuntarily. There were no other flowers. Of course there weren’t. 

“How come you got flowers?” Arenea asked, a slight pout on her face. 

Oh right. Arenea was new to schools.

He tried to shrug nonchalantly. “I- I don’t k-know.” She didn’t call him out on his stutter or the way his entire body was quivering, glancing back down at the flowers. “D-do you want t-them?” He asked. 

Arenea gave him a quick smile, making grabby hands at the bouquet. He laughed wetly, nearly shoving it in her direction. Honestly he’d have rather thrown them in the trash, Hitoshi was definitely going to know what had happened, but the happy hum she let out as she started separating them and setting them into two neat piles by her knees made the discomfort worth it. 

The spiders on his desk quickly left to regroup around Arenea. He thought he spotted a couple crab spiders among them, but they vanished too quickly for him to be sure. 

“There’s enough for me to make us both flower crowns!” Arenea cheered just as he sat in his seat, making him tense again. He glanced back at her, watching as she started weaving the stems of one pile of flowers together, her head bopping to a silent rhythm. 

“You- you really don’t have too…” He argued, wincing at the thought of walking around with those on his head. 

Arenea paused her crown making, turning to him with a perplexed look on her face. A zebra spider hopped up onto her face, deciding to explore her eyebrow. Izuku tracked it to avoid directly looking at the other teen, wondering when the others were finally going to start leaving the dorms. 

“These were your flowers.” She told him, brushing her hand against the petals. 

“... D- do you know the meaning of t-them?” He asked, deciding to try that technique. 

Arenea nodded. “The cycle of life and death. Mostly death and the afterlife.” She said softly. Izuku stared at her, but she still didn’t seem to understand. He slumped back into his seat, tearing his eyes away from the blood red flowers. The room was silent for a moment, before Arenea spoke up again, still weaving the flowers together with practiced movements. “My dad lost his best friend when they were children.”

Izuku turned around slowly, an apology on the tip of his tongue that died when Arenea continued. 

“Every year on the day of her death he’d weave three flower crowns with these. One for her, one for him, and one for me. When I was old enough he taught me how to do it. Then I’d make his, he’d make mine, and we’d both make one for her that we brought to her memorial.” With a shy smile she finished up the first crown, holding it out for him. “I’ve always thought of them as a reminder for the people we lose. That we are still thinking about them, still seeing them in the beautiful things around us.” 

Izuku felt choked up as he hesitantly reached out to hold the delicate crown, admiring the way the stems twisted together and the flowers brushed against each other. Arenea had already turned back to the ones left, making her own crown. 

“I lost my mom when I was eleven.” He blurted out. 

Arenea didn’t even pause, just nodded to show she’d heard. It felt like a silent encouragement to continue. He didn’t know what else to add, so he stayed quiet, staring down at the crown while tears blurred his vision. 

“My dad had to run when I was nine and leave me behind.” Arenea admitted quietly. “I don’t know what it’s like for a parent to die but… I know what it’s like to lose the only person you had in your corner and have to move on without them. To build something without being able to show them.” She looked up, giving him another bittersweet smile. “If you ever want to talk about her, we can always start the day with tears. Shoto says it’s good for you, and that’s why Dabi is such a grump.”

That startled an actual laugh out of him. It was gross, saliva pooling in his mouth and snot dripping down his nose, but Arenea just giggled along with him. 

After a while Izuku decided to place the crown on his head. It fit perfectly. 

“You look great.” Arenea told him earnestly, finishing up her own crown. She put it on carefully, making sure not to trap one of Gollum’s legs. “Now we match!”

Izuku smiled. It was smaller than his usual sunshine grins, but it felt just as real. Brushing away the evidence of his tears as much as possible, he glanced back towards Arenea who’d reopened her book. 

“If- if I brought you her favourite flowers,” he started to say, getting her attention again. She looked up at him, head tilted to the side. The zebra spider was now jumping around her face enthusiastically. “Could you… umm… show me how to make a crown? For her grave?”

“Yeah.” Arenea said quietly right as the door opened. Thirty minutes before class. Iida and Yaoyorozu walked into the room, Iida already clearly gearing up to a lecture on proper school attire. Izuku found he didn’t really care. “I’d love to.”

***

“Mind if I sit here?” 

Shoto turned around at lunch while chewing a mouthful of cold soba, surprised to see Arenea out of Nedzu’s office and here in the cafeteria. That did explain why the large room had mostly fallen quiet, and why the stares he’d already been feeling had intensified. She ignored them, Gollum still chilling in his nest of hair and flower crown. 

Her grin was bright as he scooted to the side, letting her slide between him and Yaomomo. Hitoshi grumbled on his right as he was elbowed. Izuku - still wearing his flower crown from that morning and sitting across from them - grinned. Kaminari was buzzing on Izuku’s left, turning away from his conversation with the Bakusquad to point finger guns at her. She did it back before picking up her chopsticks. 

Yaomomo glanced down at her tray with intrigue. “May I ask what you are eating?” She asked politely. 

“Lamb pilaf. Would you like to try?” Arenea asked, pushing her bowl over. 

“If that’s alright.” Yaomomo waited for Arenea’s nod before grabbing some with her chopsticks and bringing it up to her mouth. She hummed after she’d swallowed. “I will have to add that to my diet. Do you know the recipe?”

“Does Hitoshi have your number? I’ll make him type it out and send it to you… Or I could teach you if you’d like?” She added the last part nervously. 

“I’d appreciate that.” Yaomomo smiled. “I admit I’m not quite used to the kitchen yet.”

“I’ve seen Shoto in the kitchen, I understand.” Arenea whispered, yelping when the teen in question kicked her under the table in retaliation. 

“How are classes with Nedzu going?” Izuku asked, leaning forward. “I’m so curious as to what he’s like as a sensei.”

“He’s very patient. Sometimes he’ll get excited and forget to break things down, but he always reexplains everything slowly when he realises. He keeps giving me treats whenever I succeed at something. Oh oh that reminds me! Shoto! I managed to read Hokusai’s Daughter by myself today!” 

“That’s awesome.” Shoto passed the chocolate milk he’d grabbed over, grinning as she bounced in her seat. 

“I got to choose the next one! I picked Wonderful Day, it’s got a cute mouse on the cover and-”

“Tcht.” She froze when Bakugou snorted, seemingly just realising that all of 1A was in fact sitting together. “Aren’t those books for babies?”

Kaminari winced, scooting away from the explosive teen. 

“Yes and for people who never got the chance to learn how to read Bakugou.” Arenea snarled, stabbing the straw fiercely into the milk carton. “Your point?”

“I don’t know why Nedzu is wasting his time with you.”

“I don’t understand why Ectoplasm tries to teach any of you math when an illiterate teen learned what you’re studying at nine, but you don’t hear me making fun of your achievements.” She snapped.

“Hey Arenea-” Hitoshi started, nervously eyeing the top of her head. 

“Hah?! Are you looking down on me?!”

“Arenea-” Izuku spoke a bit louder. A lot of Class 1A was now pale.

“Say something else Bakugou and I’ll break you in training.” Shoto growled. 

“Let’s fucking go Icy Hot, I’ll fucking destroy-”

Screams filled the cafeteria, cutting him off. They all turned around, Arenea gasping when she found Gollum in a defensive position on top of another teen’s face a couple tables away. The teen - Monoma - was frozen stiff as the people he’d been sitting with hurriedly backed up, yelling over each other while the rest of the cafeteria freaked out. 

Shoto’s eyes narrowed on a group of Gen Ed students that were snickering together while sneaking glances towards Monoma. 

- 

Monoma had hoped UA would be different, and it had been for the most part. 

Even if he was still sour over being in 1B instead of 1A, and his quiet resentment at how much training was focused on powerhouse quirks instead of hand to hand (which would help him tremendously), this felt good. 1B was tight knit, the kinds of people he wished he’d had back when he was in middle school. They could be annoying, and they didn’t always care for his dramatics, but they still supported him and didn’t jump away from his touch. 

There were still whispers in the halls occasionally, and the uncommon prank that was quickly shut down, but usually nothing to this extent. 

Somehow this was even worse than middle school. 

Because back then at least it had usually been during homeroom, not in a cafeteria filled with hundreds of students. The spiders at the time had also been fake plastic things he’d just shove off without a thought, rolling his eyes. 

This one was moving and took up his entire face. 

He didn’t breath as the spider stood, clenching his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see it. He could hear the students screaming all around him, his classmates moving away from him in a way that made his stomach twist uncomfortably. Was this how he died? He’d never be able to show his face again after this if he didn’t anyway so maybe the sweet release of death would be good… 

“Gollum. Stand down please.” A soft nervous voice broke through the thoughts ringing in his ears, light footsteps steadily approaching. He stiffened even more when the thing on his face hissed. What the fuck, spiders could do that? “I know I know. I’m pretty sure Shoto is being held back from punching them. But you're also scaring the person who caught you.” A quiet bark. Monoma was buying a book on spiders after this. “I’m going to pick him up, okay? Just stay still.”

The weight on his face was lifted carefully, revealing the teen made of webs they’d seen on the television during the events of Kamino and that Vlad had warned them about when they’d moved into the doors. She grinned at him nervously, placing the spider down on the top of her head. It stayed in its defensive pose, but at least it wasn’t on Monoma anymore. 

“Sorry.” She apologised, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s good you stayed still. Not that his bite would kill you! But it’s not… the most pleasant thing…” Monoma shivered. “I’mmmm gonna stop talking now.”

“That wasn’t funny.” Monoma told her with a glare, crossing his arms. 

She frowned, tilting her head in confusion. “Why would it be?”

“Didn’t you drop him on my face or order him to or something?”

“No! Why would I do that?” 

“Class 1A trying to prove its superiority.” He dodged Kendo’s neck chop, still glaring at the shorter teen. 

“I don’t think they’re superior, but I’m also not really a part of their class. I just work here.”

He saw the electric teen laugh at that, rubbing imaginary tears from his eyes as he murmured something that sounded like “I’m so proud.” Midoriya (who he didn’t actually have a problem with) and their class rep were holding back the traitor, who was yelling at a group of cowering Gen Ed students. 

“What is your class doing?”

“Not my class.” She turned around, looked at the scene for a moment, then turned back to him and shrugged. “They seem to have it under control.”

“Right… What do they have under control?”

“I didn’t ask Gollum to jump on you. He wouldn’t do it anyway, he likes being lazy.” The spider hissed. “Yeah yeah you’re a very fierce hunter.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why they made him fly, but I’m happy he landed on you.” Monoma’s glare darkened, his entire class taking a step forward, ready to defend him. “He’s pretty easy to squash, so I’m glad he didn’t end up on someone that attacked him. Thanks for not hurting him.” She bowed. It was awkward in the way of someone who’d been told that was something people did but didn’t quite understand. She got back up quickly after.  

“I guess you're right. Most people wouldn’t have been able to react under pressure.” He boasted, ignoring the groans and sighs from his classmates. The spider teen just laughed, giving Gollum a pat on the head. “Monoma Neito of Class 1B. The superior heroics class.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Arenea Rushirufuru.” Monoma found it interesting how the dual coloured teen suddenly froze at that, turning to monitor their conversation after one last hissed threat to the Gen Ed students hurriedly backing away. “Class 1A lurker and redemption program student. The redemptioniest of programs.”

“Don’t call it that.” The ice prince of 1A deadpanned, handing some food over to Gollum which seemed to finally appease the spider. “Come on, lunch is almost over.” 

“I’m not the one who has to eat.” The teen grumbled, but she followed him anyway after waving goodbye to him and his class. 

Guess he could add the Class 1A lurker to his short list of people he tolerated from that class. 

Satisfaction filled him when he later saw the Gen Ed students getting dragged by an irate Vlad over to Nedzu’s office. He also smiled when he found a pretty pocket watch with a smoke design on his desk the next day, with a note in Mic sensei’s handwriting.

Thank you again for not squishing Gollum! He’s sorry for scaring you. I hope you like the watch! Hitoshi helped me and Gollum pick it out. It’s our apology gift. 

- Arenea

Maybe UA was actually different from middle school after all.

(Hizashi decided not to question the sudden pocket watch acquired by Arenea while they were out getting ice cream to celebrate her reading her first book. Hopefully its owner didn't miss it.)

(Slumping in his desk chair, Giran sighed when he felt his pockets and realised that his watch was missing.

"Damn it kid." he groaned, glaring half heartedly at the picture of him and a baby covered in spiders he had on his desk, the baby's father standing awkwardly to the side, almost out of frame. "Just like your dad, huh?" 

With that he picked up his phone. The kid had been with Present Mic, eating a ridiculously stacked ice cream. The picture he'd managed to snap of them was sent off. No demands for money this time. His eyes trailed back towards the picture.

"Consider us even now. I'm not looking out for your kid any longer."

Even the picture knew that was a lie.)

Chapter Text

When Arenea was three she’d started trying to get away with things. 

Now when a thief’s kid said this it was usually assumed what they were referring to was nefarious. As if a three year old was inherently more devious just because their father regularly came home with bloodstains on his shirt and kept whatever place they were staying in filled with anything one could desire. 

Really baby Arenea just wanted to eat a cookie before dinner and not brush her teeth. 

So she’d started trying to be sneaky. Creeping into the kitchen silently, waving her dry toothbrush in front of her mouth, running off when her dad asked what she’d done at her uncles’… When that hadn’t worked (because her dad had an uncanny ability to appear in whatever room she was planning on causing mischief in), she’d gone for the next best option. 

Lying. 

For months the three year old had tried. Fake tears. Poker face. Gaslighting. Pretend tantrums. Learning to whistle. Every single trick she could think of to try and get an extra cookie or hide that her uncle had let her play games with him her dad would “skin him for” (she didn’t know what that meant, but her uncle always became very pale and fidgety when he swore her to secrecy). 

Nothing worked. 

So one day the pouty three year old had - as all young kids do - complained to her uncles while they babysat her. One of them (she remembered him having black hair and insisting on handling the knives to cut her food even when she’d been eight and long trusted by her dad to do it herself) had huffed a laugh. 

“Can’t beat the master of lying.” He’d said. (It wasn’t those exact words, but Arenea had been three and could only really remember the jist of it now. Also it had involved a lot less words. There was a lot of guessing involved when talking to that uncle.)

Clearly he hadn’t interacted with three year olds determined to get away with something. 

For the next two years Arenea would observe. Her dad chuckled behind his book but otherwise acted like he couldn’t tell she was staring at him unblinkingly or looking out from behind pillars way past her bedtime in whatever warehouse they were staying at late into the night. Two years of the renowned and feared leader having a tiny shadow that followed him all around. 

And yet even after those two years, Arenea couldn’t lie to save her life. 

It didn’t matter what it was she’d done or hadn’t done. She’d employ every single one of the tricks she’d seen her dad use, spent hours practicing her facial expressions in the mirror when her dad was out, and still. After all of that work. Her dad would still raise an unimpressed eyebrow the second he got home as she sat playing with her plushies on the couch. No evidence of the cookie she’d snatched, her dad having not even glanced towards the kitchen. 

“You’re not getting desert tonight.” He’d simply tell her, shrugging off his coat.

By the time she was six Arenea had given up. It had been a whole dramatic production, her dad trying to stifle his laughter as she laid upside down and muttered into her pillow about being an utter failure. She’d snapped at his hands when he tried to run them through her hair, making him chuckle as she pouted up angrily at him. The cookies were limited to two, Arenea brushed her “teeth” twice a day, and no desserts were taken before dinner. 

Time passed and suddenly Arenea was nine and on the streets alone, with no idea where to go. 

That was when Arenea realised that maybe she hadn’t been bad at lying, and was just faced with the greatest opponent. 

It started with a lovely grandma who let her stay for a couple days after Arenea spun a tale about her father being an abusive local police chief and her mother having sent her away so she could move them out without any risk to her. 

Then it had been a hero whose name she’d long forgotten. She’d convinced him she really hadn’t meant to steal from the store where she’d been caught, tears streaming down her face as she looked down at her shoes and whispered about how daddy was drinking a lot because mommy was dead and had forgotten the groceries. She’d gotten back to Giran’s with a full bag paid for by the hero and a shit eating grin as she tossed him the pack of cigarettes no one had caught her sneaking. 

Giran had only caught on to her lying about why she was crashing at his after her dad contacted him to check on her, the man only sighing as he glared at Arenea’s unrepentant expression. She’d slipped out back into the streets the next day, not interested in finding out if he’d contact the emotionally constipated man that sometimes tailed her dad like a lost puppy the last few years. 

On and on it went. Shopkeepers who gave her free food. Villains that slid her some cash. People in debt that thought she was one of the collectors breathing down their necks. Drug dealers buying products who she gave packs of sugar to for a while. 

Endeavour when the number two hero had caught her in his house and set her on fire. She’d brought out the waterworks as she trembled in the back of a police car, soot all over her body as she told the arresting officer that she'd accidentally fallen from a tree past the fence and couldn’t make her way out. 

“I- I just wanted someone to- to help and no- no one answered the door.” She’d whimpered, easily keeping a grin down as the officers started giving Endeavour dirty looks. “It- It’s so… so cold.”

She’d gotten a ride “home” (and oh how hilarious the day the police found out they’d been driving the child of one of their most wanted to a house rented by the most prolific serial killers in the world would be) and then spent the day trashing the place while she could. 

Payback for the clown asshole keeping her dad away from her. 

Out of the whole incident had bloomed an unlikely friendship with the boy who’d caught her before his father. (And who in the chaos of Endeavour’s actions had smuggled the items he’d helped her steal out the window. They’d end up by the tree she’d lied about falling out of, and would get pawned off before the number two’s schedule cleared up enough for him to notice.)

Shoto wasn’t able to always tell when Arenea was lying, but he was the only other person she knew who could come up with convincing enough lies on the spot. A survival instinct when living with his father instead of a fun skill learnt, but a bonding experience none the less). 

When Shoto had dragged her over to the League she had to admit she wasn’t very impressed. They were disorganised and had terrible plans that Shigaraki wouldn’t take criticism on. Shiggy had about as much authority over the others as a goldfish had on a cat. AFO’s instructions were so cryptic she’d legitimately asked the doctor if he’d gotten brain damage during his fight with All Might once (the answer was surprisingly no). 

But… Keigo shared his raw chicken with her. Shiggy introduced her to video games and managed to scrounge up enough patience to teach her how to play them. Kurogiri made her colourful drinks with silly straws. Magne, Toga, and Twice invited her to girls' nights. Dabi joined her on outings when she was worried about going alone, walking by her side despite the strange looks they gained. Mr. Compress taught her magic and the League let her showcase every single trick she learnt, no matter how many times Mr. Compress had done it. Spinner was the one to sit with her on bad days, playing with the spiders she let run around and trading compliments. 

After a while she’d stopped staying because Shoto asked her to and started staying because it was… nice. 

She hadn’t realised just how much she’d missed having a family until she had one again, as broken and insane as it was. 

(If it kept a certain fanatic clown and long haired assassin from harassing her and trying to kidnap her off the streets, well that was just a nice bonus) 

If Arenea really wanted to break out of U.A. she could have done so yesterday probably. She’d kept her cards close enough to her chest for no one, not even Shoto, to know the full extent of her quirk or the skills she had. 

But Arenea was actually enjoying U.A. the same way she’d actually started enjoying the League. 

Which was why she was so annoyed when she walked into Nedzu’s office alone for their lesson the Friday after the incident in the cafeteria to find two very unwelcome but familiar faces. 

With a sigh she dropped the black and yellow Put Your Hands Up backpack that Hizashi had gotten her from the rejected merch room at his radio station onto the carpeted floor. 

“Can you put your weird needle thingy away.” She grumbled, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at the weirdly wide eyed man. Then she grabbed the feet of the pink haired jester and unceremoniously shoved them off the desk they’d been resting on, enjoying the squawk of protest. “What are you two even doing?”

“What kind of stepfathers would we be if we didn’t check on our favourite stepchild, hmmm?” The man she’d been referring to as a traitorous snake (because neither deserved her even remembering their names) purred, and she grimaced. 

“One: if you’d said that in front of dad he’d have fought and killed you years ago.” She snapped, turning back to glare at lifeless eyed stalker until he finally pulled the needle he’d been hovering by Nedzu’s throat away. “Two: not your stepchild.”

“Not yet. We’ll become your daddies soon.” Traitorous snake moaned and she gagged. 

Scratch that. Traitorous snake was offensive to snakes. She was calling him nauseating pesticide. 

“I’m starting to think taking the hunters exam and dying might be appealing.” She grumbled. “You’ve seen me, I’m alive, now get out. And go drown in a lake so dad can come back without thinking you’ll jump for my throat.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Nauseating pesticide asked with a grin that showed his teeth. 

“We want you to move to the manor.” Lifeless eyed stalker cut in before she could fire back, making her snap her attention back to him suddenly. 

“Absolutly not.”

The man raised an eyebrow. Impressive that he’d apparently learnt to express at least one emotion. Someone should throw a celebration. “You’d rather stay here with these heroes?”

“Yes.” 

“They’re keeping you captive.”

“It’s just in the eyes of the commission.” Arenea lied, praying to whatever god or devil she’d upset to take pity on her. 

These two were fifty-fifty on buying her lies, and if she got dragged into staying in their gilded cage of a mansion after dodging it for years now she’d become worse than her dad. Somehow. 

“You’re wearing an ankle monitor.”

“It’s fake. I have full permission to come and go as I please.”

“What would this thing even gain from something like this?” Nauseating pesticide asked. 

“His name is Nedzu.” She hissed, barring her fangs at him. It only caused him to shiver excitedly and her to back up with a disgusted frown. “And he gets a chess partner.”

The pink haired man started cackling while the black haired one raised his eyebrow even higher. Nedzu just watched her, curiosity clear in his gaze and his tail swaying slightly as he tried to calculate what move she’d make next. 

“You-” Nauseating pesticide started to say between grating peels of laughter. “Play chess!”

“I’m allowed to like things that dad doesn’t.” She grumbled. 

“Then win a game against Nedzu.” Lifeless eyed stalker said in the emotionless tone he always used. “If you do, we'll let you continue with your self-destructive…”

“Oh that is rich-”

“Decisions. But if you don't, you come with us without issue.”

“Fine.” She snapped, taking her seat across from Nedzu and watching as he started setting up the board. 

Arenea had never played chess. 

It was one of those weird things that her dad hated, and none of the league had ever been interested in it. The only knowledge she had was from watching Shiggy play an online version on his phone once when they were supposed to wait for a contact AFO had arranged (there had been no data and it was the only game downloaded. Shiggy had ended up dusting the phone after the first round). 

Nedzu picked white. Which at least meant she got to watch him first as he made his move. 

Arenea had never played chess, but she was very used to reading people that were too smart and analytical for their own good. 

If she could figure out AFO’s intentions with her from the way his non-existent gaze lingered on her, then how hard could figuring out how chess worked be?

As it turned out the answer was very. 

The room slipped away at some point, her focus narrowing on Nedzu completely. She didn’t listen to the grumbles about boredom that came from behind her or the feeling of long hair tickling the back of her neck. She focused on keeping track of how each piece Nedzu moved travelled across the board.

Minutes ticked by. First five. Then ten. Then thirty. 

Fifty four minutes later Nedzu paused as his turn came, staring down at the board for a moment. 

“You seem to have me in checkmate.” He gleefully announced, knocking down his king. 

Arenea blinked. Once. Twice. 

“Really?” She asked quietly, looking up into his eyes. 

“Did you let me win so I could stay?” Was the unanswered question that lingered in the air. 

The two leeches that had been a constant in her life for years finally made themselves scarce as promised, vanishing from the room like annoying mosquitoes that would return to buzz in her ear when it would annoy her most. 

Nedzu’s laughter echoed through the vents of the school, sending a shiver down everyone’s spine. Shouta wondered once again whether or not he could get away with quitting, while Hizashi switched from English to French without realising as the horrifying realisation that Nedzu was laughing like that with the kid he and Shouta had taken in in his office settled in. 

“I didn’t have too.” His delighted cackles said. 

Somehow that sent her into a fit of giggles as well, and all of U.A. just looked to the sky and hoped that they would be spared as the sound resonated across the whole building. 

***

“You beat Nedzu.” Shoto repeated slowly at dinner that night. “At chess.”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Arenea mumbled, picking up one of the sushis they had ordered and bringing it up to her mouth. 

“We’re all doomed.” Shouta whispered under his breath. 

Hitoshi dropped his head against the table.

Hizashi quietly chewed on his sushi, for once at a complete loss for words. 

Shoto stayed quiet for a moment, pondering something while staring at the soja sauce with so much intensity Hizashi swore it started sweating. 

“I’m telling Giri that you could have beat Shiggy’s game of chess easily or at least given him tips so he didn’t dust his phone.” Shoto finally said. 

Arenea launched into protests, the two bickering with each other for the rest of dinner while the other three continued with their crisis. 

That night she waited until Shouta was out on patrol, Hizashi snoring in his room, Hitoshi finally asleep at his desk and Shoto mumbling sleepily while clutching a cat plushie Hitoshi had given him to climb out from underneath the bed. 

She slipped out into the hallway, staring at one of the framed pictures hanging above a small trinket shelf. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Arenea didn’t whirl around or jump at the voice. Instead she deliberately put down the file she’d been looking at and turned slowly, leaning back against the table and meeting the doctor’s eyes. 

“Shigaraki said you had a file they could use to get a meeting with the Shie Haissaikai.” She told him before gesturing to the messy table, making sure she drew his eyes away from the file behind her that the spiders were quickly replacing with another. “You weren’t here so I figured I’d look for it myself.”

The doctor stormed forward, grabbing the file underneath her hand. She let him do so, her face impassive as he flipped through the file. 

Something boring about the liquid used in the nomu tanks. The spiders were back underneath her jeans and within the webbing of her body by the time the man scanned the table, looking at all the closed files. The ones on the actual nomu project were all locked up in their cabinets, leaving only the ones about his chemical experiments scattered about. 

“I’ll bring it up to him once I find it. Don’t look through these again.” The man snapped, shooing her out of the room. 

She headed back up the stairs and carefully avoided any of the League members that were in the living area, taking a seat at the bar. 

“A drink?” Kurogiri asked as he wiped down a cup. 

“Orange juice please Giri.” She said quietly. The man nodded, turning to the fridge after handing her the cup he’d finished drying. “Would you like to listen to Put Your Hands Up with me tonight?”

The man’s quirk flickered for a moment. “Of course.” He replied without any emotion, filling up her glass with the orange liquid before excusing himself when the noise level in the living area grew. 

“Hello Shirakumo Oboro. It’s nice to finally get to put a living face to the name.” She whispered as she pulled out the phone she’d pickpocketed from nauseating pesticide that morning. The code was easy to crack, the man finding humour in making it 1234 for some reason. “Don’t worry. I didn’t forget about my promise.”

The phone buzzed. 

Doc Kill Joy

Online 

I admit I didn’t expect to hear from you after our last interaction, much less in this manner.

Of course I would be open to rediscussing a collaboration between our organisations. It would be extremely beneficial for us both, as I stated previously. Let me know when and where would suit you best. 

A grin crept up on her face as she tapped the text bar to reply. 

“I just need you to wait for a bit longer so I can settle something first.”

Chapter Text

“Hey Lunch Rush.” Arenea slid up to the hero as the cafeteria was starting to empty, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Could you make me some popcorn?”

“Of course.” The hero agreed easily despite having already started to clean, moving to the machine that many forgot was hanging around towards the back of the kitchen. “I assume this is for heroics this afternoon.”

“If I have to watch then I at least want to have a snack.” Arenea grinned cheekily. “Plus I can throw it at them for motivation.”

The hero laughed. They chatted for a bit until the popcorn popped, before the kid thanked him and rushed out into the deserted hallways. Making her way to the gym Class 1A was using to practice for the licensing exam was easy. She slid in unnoticed, making her way to the stands and taking a seat behind Hizashi and Nemuri as they chatted away while watching Shouta and Kan give their respective homeroom instructions. 

Neither pro noticed her, so she slid the phone she’d snatched last Friday out of her pocket, opening up the only recent text thread. Nauseating pesticide lost the damned thing so often she knew it wouldn’t be missed, which was the only reason she’d tolerated his presence as long as she had. 

The man was smart enough to put the pieces together, but curious enough that he’d stay away to watch whatever dominos she set in motion fall. 

The mention of ultimate moves made her look up, the phone vanishing into her leg. She’d purposefully picked this part of the bench because the exact point was a unique blindspot in the cameras. She leaned forward so that she was by Hizashi’s shoulder, unable to fight against the smirk that appeared as she interrupted him. 

“What are they talking about?”

Hizashi shrieked so loud he blasted the waterbottles innocently sitting on the bleachers below into the air, Nemuri also screaming - though much less loudly - and jumping up to her feet with her wrist raised ready to use her quirk. All eyes snapped up to them, Shouta rubbing the bridge of his nose while Kan checked on the students with sensitive hearing to make sure they were okay. 

“Arenea!” Hizashi gasped between heaving breaths, frowning at her as she giggled. “Not cool little listener.”

“Sorry sorry.” She pulled back, still grinning, and picked up a handful of popcorn to toss into her mouth. 

Good job. Shouta mouthed when he came up to join them with Kan, ruffling her hair before sitting down by her side. 

They sat there watching as Class 1A and 1B went off into their separate corners or formed small groups. Izuku, Hitoshi and Shoto had migrated towards each other when the instructions were given, all three whispering softly to each other barely a breath apart. Arenea rolled her eyes, scanning the room to find Kaminari hanging back a bit from the Bakusquad that Shoto had talked (read: complained) about at length. Monoma was alone, occasionally drifting towards a member of his class to tap into their quirk without them noticing before returning to his own corner. 

“Can I have some little listener?” Hizashi asked a couple minutes in, looking at the delicious smelling buttery popcorn she’d been slowly snacking on. 

She tipped the bucket towards him so he (and Nemuri) could grab a handful before setting it down by her side. The sun was warm and shining down on them, and the usual buzz of her quirk faded with it. 

When summer started to come around it took time to get used to how her quirk started to feel as less and less spiders actively wandered during the day. The sun’s heat brought with it silence and the stilling of her webbing, only occupied by a few sleeping spiders. Her energy drained quicker, lulled into rest by the quietness that settled across every corner of her insides. 

Her eyes drifted shut, body slumping against Shouta. 

The man blinked slowly as he turned, instinctively going to push the weight off, only to find his foster child across his lap fast asleep. Her limbs were curled up by her chest, little puffs of breath coming out from her nose as she nibbled the air. 

“Hizashi.” He hissed quietly, trying to get his husband’s attention as the man cheered with Nemuri for Jirou. The teen blushed, turning away from their attention with a proud smile. “Hizashi!”

“Yes Sho- Oh my god!” Shouta’s quirk flared for a moment to stop his husband from making the gym shake again, before dropping panicked eyes to the kid in his lap. She didn’t even twitch, peaceful face still deep into slumber. “Sho! She’s sleeping on you!”

“I noticed.” Shouta deadpanned, dropping a hand down to tentatively round his hands through her hair. The kid leaned into the touch, letting out what almost sounded like a pleased purr. “What do I do? You’re the one she likes!”

“Just pretend she’s a stray cat.” Hizashi waved his hand, pulling out his phone to take pictures for the group chat with Tensei. Nemuri was already typing on hers, a shit eating grin on her face. Traitors. “This is, like, exactly what happened with Fish.”

“It is not.” Shouta pinched his nose in exasperation for the second time since entering the gym. 

Still he didn’t move, staying as still as possible except for his hand still petting her hair as he looked back at the students. Thankfully none of them had noticed, all too busy trying to come up with ultimate moves. It was a wonder the kid could sleep through all of the yelling and explosions (both literal and metaphorical) happening below. 

The kid managed to sleep through most of the training. Shouta was grateful when Kan decided to take over most of the training, fielding questions so that none of the students came up to bother them. 

Arenea only blinked back to awareness when Shoto marched up the stairs, puffs of cool air coming from his mouth. He didn’t even say anything, just stared down at the girl until she stirred. Unfocused eyes met his, the kid groaning as she pulled herself up and quietly apologised for her hair clinging to Shota’s uniform. 

“Shouldn’t you be down there screaming what move you're about to make at whoever you're sparring against?” She grumbled, running her hands through her hair in a desperate attempt to untangle it. 

“Spar with me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re already bored.”

Shoto rolled his eyes, holding out his hand expectantly and beckoning her with his fingers. Arenea stuck out her tongue at him and grabbed a handful of popcorn that she immediately shoved into her mouth. 

“You’ll get to scare the class.” He offered. 

“If I scare them they should look into transferring out of this course.” Arenea replied unimpressed, leaning back with her bucket of popcorn held protectively in both arms. “I’m enjoying the entertainment.”

“You were sleeping.”

“I don’t get to do that often.”

“And this is the only time I can spar with you with my quirk.” Shoto countered, snatching away her snack and ignoring her yelp. He passed it over to Hizashi who accepted it with a snicker, holding it out for Nemuri to grab some. 

“... Fine.” Arenea grumbled, grabbing Shoto’s hand and forcing him to pull her entire weight to drag her to her feet. He did it without any issue, grinning sharply as he tugged her along. Shouta followed, Hizashi and Nemuri stumbling over themselves to get up and join, but didn’t make any move to stop them. 

They headed over to some mats that had been set up for the students and that weren’t occupied. Arenea was wearing loose black pants that almost looked like a skirt when her legs were close and a dark purple shirt that was thankfully tight. She kicked off her shoes before stepping on the mat, sending them flying against the opposite wall. 

“Rules?” She asked as she pulled her hair back into a bun and used a strand to tie it. 

“Anything goes but no injuries that would require Recovery Girl.” Shoto stepped onto the opposite side of the mat, adopting a fighting stance. Arenea remained standing, placing her hands in her pocket and nodding. “That means no pens.”

“I don’t have any.” It was her turn to roll her eyes. 

Shoto lunged at that moment, sending a wave of ice towards her that shot up to the ceiling. The students that had started to look over started muttering, cracking jokes towards Sero as he shivered. 

Then the smoke cleared. 

And Shoto only barely had time to dodge out of the way of the kick that nearly connected with his neck. 

Everyone in the room fell silent. 

Shoto sent a wave of flames next, eyes narrowing and glancing around the mat. He took a step back and stumbled, rolling backward into a crouch. Arenea was still nowhere to be seen. Shimmering when the light caught it just right was a single thread stretched out like a trip wire. 

The swish of something slicing through the air was the only warning Shoto got before a knife plunged into the iceberg behind him, two others following it in rapid succession. Shoto leaped out of the way, landing on his stomach as the structure fractured and tipped forward, shattering on the mat. 

Shoto aimed his next blast of ice upwards. It connected with the supporting beams, frost spreading across them. For a moment everything was still and silent, Shoto scanning them with sharp eyes. 

He didn’t hear the fire extinguisher before it was too late. 

The foam hit him head on, blinding him and shutting off his quirk as the thick foam covered his hands. Shoto tried to wipe it away on his uniform, but it was a lost cause. A hit to the back of his knees sent him to the floor, and the cold tip of a pen was pressed up against his temple hard enough that a drop of ink dribbled out. 

“Yield.” He coughed. Arenea helped him dab away the foam stubbornly sticking to his eyes, shooting him a sheepish grin when he could finally open them again. “Where were you?”

“Behind your ice mostly. I climbed up for the knives and grabbed the extinguisher from the wall at one point too.” She shrugged, pulling back and pointing to the empty canister laying between two of his giant ice structures. “Probably shouldn’t give your opponent the perfect hiding spot.”

“I made them tight.” Shoto grumbled. 

“Except your ice comes in waves. If I grabbed onto the tip of the first one I was well clear of the others.” She pointed to one of them that had some pieces of webbing dangling into the wind. Shoto sent a wave of fire towards them now that the foam was wiped off his hands, water splashing the gathered students as the ice spikes went down. 

“Excuse me, but I must point out she left the mat!” Iida exclaimed, Arenea turning towards him and watching as he chopped his arms up and down. 

“Yeah… because otherwise I’d have gotten stuck in the ice?” She turned towards the puddle of water and jabbed her finger at it for emphasis. 

“This means that the spar goes to Shoto! Furthermore using a fire extinguisher was a cheap trick and-”

“Do you think villains stay in a designated square during fights?” Arenea interrupted, sounding genuinely bewildered. “Do you think villains care about fairness?”

“This is a spar between classmates!”

“In a hero course. You’re training to fight villains!” She turned towards Shota with wide eyes. “Please tell me you don’t send them out on the field without at least fighting some vigilantes.”

“The HPSC wouldn’t approve of that.” Shota grumbled under his breath, tucking his face in his scarf. 

Arenea blinked. Once. Then twice. 

“Okay! Then how about we have both classes against me?” She asked. 

The room exploded into noise. 

Ringing out over the sudden cacophony was Nedzu’s echoing laugh through the vents.

Chapter Text

Despite Hizashi and Shota’s best efforts, Nedzu gleefully approved of Arenea’s plan. 

They took over one of UA’s largest gyms. Arenea had gotten the pick of the location since she was playing the villain and had immediately pointed to the cityscape. She decided to start off at the center, leaning against the entrance door of the building on the rooftop, her hands placed in the buckets of her hoodie. She wasn’t even in athletic gear, and Shota would have lectured her about it if there hadn’t been a glint of something… calculating in her eyes. 

It was his students’ he’d probably have to lecture. They’d all caught sight of her outfit, which bordered on being considered pyjamas, and her sleep tangled hair. He could see the moment most of them dropped their guards, the only exceptions being Bakugou, Midoriya, Hitoshi, Shoto, and Kaminari. 

Arenea went into the cityscape first, giving them fifteen minutes of preparation time. They all caught sight of her climbing up to the roof using a pipe that ran along the building she’d chosen. 

Four groups formed, two of each class. He was going to have to work on them intermingling more often. Then the groups started to leave, heading out and branching off so that they could all be in a different corner of the cityscape. 

So far the plan seemed to be going well. The assembled teachers (All of them. They’d had to do this outside of school hours because none wanted to miss it. Lunch Rush had even provided them all popcorn that was exactly to their taste.) started to drop their guard. 

Then before the fifteen minutes post entrance Arenea had given them were up, Kaminari casually walked back into the room. He didn’t acknowledge any of them, just sat in one of the chairs facing the screens, grabbed a headset that Shouta had just assumed was left from another exercise. Then grinned.

***

“Hypotheticallyyyy,” Arenea spun around on Denki’s desk chair twice before stopping so she was facing the beanbag he’d collapsed on after she’d finished helping him out with math. Algebraic equations would be the death of him. “How opposed would you be to betraying your class for a training exercise?”

Denki cracked open one eye, staring up at her with his head hanging upside down off the beanbag. “Hypothetically I’d need something to gain from it. Every good villain has a backstory right?”

“Hypothetically, if I offered you the answers to the next test Ectoplasm is planning that I know you have forgotten.” She shot him a look and Denki closed his eyes again, whispering lalala under his breath. “And one Pokemon card of your choice. Any in existence.”

“Hypothetically I would agree for three Pokemon cards and an answer on who you’ve been texting these last few weeks.”

Arenea went quiet. She spun the chair three times before staring out of the window at the darkening sky. Stars were starting to appear. 

“Hypothetically if you promise to not tell anyone or ask any follow up questions, we have a deal.”

Denki grinned, opening both of his eyes and swatting at the ground trying to find his phone. Arenea giggled. “Let me show you the cards I desperately want. Hypothetically of course.”

***

Monoma was the only one left in his class. 

He ran down the eerily quiet streets, trying to locate anyone he could from Class 1A. 

No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t scrub away the sight of all of his classmates wrapped up in webbing. Fine but incredibly strong webbing that had been nearly invisible and caught them before anyone could notice it was even there. 

It seemed like any street or building they picked had one in a spot they were guaranteed to cross. 

Doorways. Windows. It wasn’t all of them, Monoma had managed to get through the building he’d used to reach the roof they’d assigned him too just fine. But it was every single other one they’d chosen as their starting point. 

Every lack of response to a call over his comm made his heart pound louder in his chest. 

Monoma ran past the members of 1A that had already fallen without even taking the time to gloat. He had a mission to accomplish, and there was plenty of that once it was done. Quickly he scaled a building to reach the rooftop, nearly colliding with Shinsou. Their hands brushed as Shinsou helped him remain upright, his face covered by his voice modulator. 

“Wow, are you okay Monoma?” Shinsou asked. 

Monoma had to stop himself from laughing when Shinsou’s words came out in Present Mic’s voice. Something about the emotionless exhausted face and the voice was just hilarious. 

“We’ve lost all of 1B.” He informed the other teen, then pointed at his ear where his earpiece should have been. “My earpiece dropped so I couldn’t let you know. I ran until I could find one of you.”

“Okay. I’m just going to-”

Monoma finally cracked when Shinsou froze mid sentence, his cackles echoing in the air. He tossed the teen some capture tape that he’d snagged from his other classmates, covered in a few determined tiny spiders. 

“Get as many of your classmates as you can captured.” He instructed, pulling out his earpiece and placing it back in his ear. 

Shinsou turned to the edge of the building and started using his capture scarf to grapple down. 

Monoma turned, still cackling, and made his way back to the rooftop Arenea was sitting crosslegged on. 

“It’s done, your evil genius.” He bowed as soon as his feet landed on solid ground, his smile nearly reaching his eyes as Arenea stood up. They interlaced their arms. “Shall we go watch the show?”

The former villain’s eyes sparkled. “With pleasure.”

***

Neito was not afraid to admit that his scream would have woken up the entirety of 1B had Arenea not muffled it with a pillow, sitting on his chest and looking down at him. 

“Relax, it's just me.” She placed the pillow back next to his head when he finally stopped, but stayed on his chest. That was how Neito noticed that she didn’t weigh anything. It helped him get his breathing back much easier, the rise and fall of his lungs only making her move up and down with each breath. 

“I doubt even Nedzu would approve of you trying to smother us in our sleep as a way to prove that villains don’t play fair.” He complained when his heart had finally stopped racing, dramatically slapping his hand down over his hand. “But if you must at least tell me you went for 1A first.”

“Nope! But that’s why I’m here.” The devil - and that’s what she had to be as a small grin spread on her face, a glint of danger in her eyes - leaned down so that her hair fell around his head like a curtain, their noses barely a centimeter apart. “How much would you like to beat the all mighty unstoppable 1A?”

The smile that spread across Neito’s face made his lips ache. 

***

It took the teachers exactly one hour and fourteen minutes to free every single one of their students. 

Between the ones wrapped up in webs (some of which Neito had shoved into closets or empty dumpsters), the ones in capture tape, the ones who’d been knocked unconscious when they accidentally brushed against a stray wire that Denki could mess with using the electricity box in the control room, and the ones Neito had snagged with his classmates’ quirks, it took all hands on deck. The three teens were enjoying the popcorn a proud Hizashi had handed them - Arenea sitting on Denki’s lap and Monoma leaning against the side of the chair as he theorised on some ways Denki could use his quirk without overloading himself - when the two classes walked in. 

40 students with varying expressions stood together silently, 1A on the right and 1B on the left. Denki looked away, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. Monoma stopped talking, meeting their gazes head on. Arenea just grinned, waving cheerily. 

“That wasn’t fair!”

“Not cool bro! How could you betray us like that?”

“Really Monoma?”

All at once every single student started talking and screaming, except for Hitoshi who was watching without any expression and Shoto who was simply glaring at Arenea. 

“There were no rules against me asking for help.” Arenea brushed off all the complaints before turning to Izuku, who also hadn’t said anything and was slowly creeping away from the assembled classes. He joined their side, startling when Neito wrapped his arm around his shoulders with a grin that showed off his teeth. 

Bakugou started screaming. 

***

Izuku and Arenea were staring at each other, each on one side of Nedzu’s desk with the principal sitting at his chair in between, whiskers twitching in amusement as he watched the two play Go Fish of all things while not breaking eye contact. 

“You took on Stain with Shoto last year. Don’t tell me - do you have the seven of hearts? - that you draw the line at giving me analysis for this exercise.”

“Go fish. My class will hate me if I help you like this. Do you have the eight of diamonds?”

“That’s stupid - go fish, nine of clubs please and thank you - besides you’ll still have Shoto and Hitoshi. Do you have the ten of spades?”

“Go fish. You’re drawing this out and already know my cards don’t you?”

“I won’t let either of us win if you don’t agree.” Arenea cheerfully confirmed, shuffling her cards with a flourish. 

“... you just want analysis on the best plan and your best choices out of those you know will help right?”

“Yep! Besides, consider it.” She placed her cards down on the table, revealing that she’d somehow gotten a full set and getting rid of them at once. Izuku rolled his eyes and dropped his own unceremoniously. He’d been so close. “You get the advantage of knowing all of this! Who am I to stop you once you leave this room telling the rest of your class?”

Izuku was quiet. Then a small smirk tugged on the corner of his lip. “What if I give you the analysis, get dibs on Bakugou, then capture myself as let’s say… decoy?”

“A villain acting like a hero and getting to remain as an assumed victim?” Arenea’s eyes sparkled as she reached out a hand, Nedzu pulling out his tea set with three cups. Izuku finally sat back in his chair, sinking into the comfortable cushions with a spider dancing along his fingers. “Welcome to the villain’s side, Midoriya Izuku.”

***

“Why Kaminari and Monoma?” Hitoshi asked once Eraser had glared the classes into silence and told them they would be allowed one question each at maximum, one at a time. 

“The options were you, Shoto, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, and Monoma.” “Shoto would have been too obvious of a choice. I… I didn’t want the class to be angry at you or call you a villain.” Izuku quickly explained, blushing slightly. Hitoshi ducked his head in his capture scarf and Shoto was effectively distracted from his glaring. “It was 50/50 on Yaoyorozu agreeing, but she did make the headsets and the earpieces. Thanks Yaomomo!”

The girl gave them a nod and a smile. “It was my pleasure to be included in the plan.”

“Why didn’t you fight us huh?” Bakugou asked, his quirk popping. 

“She’d have forgotten about non lethal force and snapped someone’s neck.” Shoto sent her a light glare. 

Arenea stuck out her tongue before turning back to Bakugou and shrugging. “The point was that you can’t expect villains to play fair. You thought you’d all be up against just me, and since I looked tired you mostly assumed it would be easy. I didn’t have to fight you if I didn’t want to, and none of you had a chance to even get close to the roof.”

“We should be able to trust our fellow heroes in the field!” Iida protested. 

“Stain.” Arenea muttered, just loud enough for those around her and Iida to hear. 

The teachers ushered them all out after that, leaving Arenea alone with Hizashi, Nedzu, and Shouta. Shouta moved first, ruffling her hair with a proud grin he didn’t even hide in his capture weapon. 

“Your first logical ruse. I’m so fucking proud.” 

“Language Sho!” Hizashi snapped before grabbing the kid and spinning her in the air. “But amazing plan little listener! And you worked with friends!”

“Allies in mischief.” She corrected with a smirk. Nedzu laughed while Hizashi pulled a face. 

The phone in her leg buzzed softly. Nedzu’s ear twitched. 

Over Hizashi’s shoulder she narrowed her eyes at him. 

For the first time in a long time. Nedzu actually felt a tiny bit of fear as those eight pupils and fangs stared him down, vanishing the moment Hizashi pulled her back and set her down, calling for celebratory ice cream.