Chapter Text
Hizashi is the one that’s always wanted a kid. Shota has been okay with it and willing to do what makes his husband happy, but he’s never really had that drive to be a parent like his husband. He supposes it’s a little different for the blonde: he was in the system and he knows how nasty it was before his moms adopted him and he likes kids and wants to pass on the good and take a kid like himself out of the clutches of the foster system. Shota understands that.
That being said, they don’t really have the time to take care of a baby with their schedules. He’s got patrols and raids and he’s out all hours of the night because it's not like underground heroes operate during sun up hours, and Hizashi has his own patrols plus his show at the station and whatever media he gets asked to do. Add to that teaching classes, and they’re really busy all the time, so mostly the want is pushed to the back burner, waiting to get some attention when they’re not, well, busy.
The problem is: Shota accidentally acquires a kid. He’s out on patrol, it’s three in the morning, and this kid is just wandering down the street. Shota watches him for a few minutes, but he doesn’t seem to be headed anywhere in particular, so he drops down the fire escape of a building half a block in front of the kid and comes out on the sidewalk.
The kid doesn’t even pay him any attention, eyes fixed to his shoes as he trudges along. He’s wearing a ragged hoodie with holes around the collar, and he’s got some kind of scarf around the lower half of his face. His sweatpants aren’t quite as battered and holey, but it’s a close race.
Shota watches the kid walk towards him, feet kicking at a rock, and comes to the disgusting, heart-wrenching, stomach-turning realization that the scarf around the kid’s face isn’t a scarf.
It’s a muzzle .
God damn everything on this earth, this kid can’t be older than ten and he’s walking around in the middle of the night wearing a muzzle .
Shota steps out into the kid’s path, but he doesn’t seem to notice until the rock he’s kicking hits the pro Hero’s shoe. The kid stops, and looks up at him, and Shota can see blood and scabs around the kid’s mouth and across his nose from how hard the metal of the thing is digging into his face. Maybe the worst part of it is that the kid seems resigned, like this is just a part of his life, like it’s something he’s lived with and has no hope of it ending.
As far as Shota can tell, the kid is a boy. He’s got a crop of wild lavender hair, and bags under his eyes deep enough to rival his own. The muzzle clearly isn’t the right size for him, intended for someone much smaller - and when Shota comes to that realization it takes everything in him not to scream - and has a thick leather strap holding it in place.
“Kid,” he says as gently as he can when he’s this mad.
Even so the kid flinches.
“Hey, hey, sorry,” he says, lowering himself closer to the kid’s height.
The boy looks at him warily. Shota wishes he didn’t understand, but he does.
“Can I get that off of you?”
He shrugs. Shota doesn’t know what to do. On one hand, he doesn’t want to upset the kid by touching him without his permission, but on the other, he absolutely refuses to let that thing stay on his face.
The kid reaches back and messes with the strap at the back on his head, and then drops his arm in defeat.
“Can I take a look?”
The kid eyes him suspiciously, but nods. Shota stands up and steps around the kid, and wishes he had something to stab.
The reason the kid hasn’t taken it off himself is because someone put a lock on it.
“I’m going to have to cut this off,” he says. “Stay still.”
Shota keeps several knives on his person while he’s on patrol, and he takes one of the smaller ones from its place over his kidney and carefully slides it between the kid’s head and the leather strap. Unfortunately for both of them, it’s so tight that Shota has no choice but to pull it harder against his face in order to cut the leather but not the kid.
The knife is sharp and the leather is old, and it parts without much effort. As soon as the pressure is gone, the tension in the kid’s shoulders releases. Shota hadn’t even been able to tell he was tense.
The pro slides the knife back into place and rounds to the kid’s front, where he’s, for some reason, holding the muzzle to his face. Shota takes a closer look at the blood and the scabs and asks,
“Is it stuck?”
The kid nods.
“Can I help you get it off?”
Now that he’s proved to be a help in the kid’s eye - that’s what he assumes anyway - the kid nods insistently. Shota keeps his movements large and well-telegraphed, used to dealing with spooked civilians too high on adrenaline to be anything but a jumpy mess. He puts his hand on the muzzle - a fucking muzzle - and slowly peels it away from where it’s cut into the kid’s skin. A fresh wave of blood comes from the cuts around his mouth and across his nose, but the relief of having it off is obviously so sweet that neither kid nor hero care much.
The kid looks so much better with it off.
He’s tempted to drop the thing to the ground and step on it until it breaks and isn’t anything more than a hunk of useless metal and leather, but the pro in him knows it needs to be turned over to the police as evidence. The thought of having to hold onto it disgusts him, but it’s not like he’s going to give it back to the kid.
“What’s your name?” he asks softly.
The kid looks up at him, but doesn’t answer.
“Do you know your name?”
The kid nods.
“But you don’t want to tell me.”
The kid hesitates like he’s thinking it over and shrugs.
“Is it because you don’t want to speak?”
A nod.
“You’re not going to get in trouble for talking,” he says. “Whoever did this to you is a criminal, and they were wrong to treat you like that.”
A shrug.
“That’s okay,” Shota says, not willing to push the issue. “Those cuts look painful, and we don’t want them to get infected. I’d like to take you to the hospital.”
The kid immediately takes a step back and shakes his head. Shota thinks he understands.
“Hey, kid, look at me,” he squats down to make himself shorter and less intimidating. “Whatever your name is, wherever you came from, whoever did this to you, you aren’t going back. No one deserves to be treated like they’re less than human, and muzzled like an animal, and I’m not going to let them do it to you again. Okay?”
The kid is shaking, and Shota can feel his heart breaking; the kid hadn’t cried when he was wearing the muzzle, he hadn’t cried when the pro had to hurt him to get it off, but this - this, a promise of aid and support - has the kid weeping, silent tears that are sure to sting his wounds.
Shota is really out of his league. He’s an underground hero for God’s sake; the only emotions he tends to deal with are his husband’s. He doesn’t comfort well - that’s Hizashi’s job - but even at a loss for what to do, he must give the kid some signal or other because one minute he’s crouched in front of a crying kid and the next he’s on his ass and said crying kid is trying to crawl inside his skin.
Shota shushes him the best he can, getting to his feet and scooping the kid up with him. The kid clings to him like Hizashi does when he’s drunk, hands fisted in his shirt, face buried as far in his neck as he can with the pro’s capture weapon in the way. The kid - maybe nine or ten with his best guess - is way too light for how tall he is; through the sweatshirt Shota can tell he’s hardly anything more than skin and bones.
(Shota wonders when the last time he was allowed to eat was, if whoever was in charge of the kid even bothered to take the muzzle off to feed him.)
As adhered to him as the kid is, Shota doesn’t think it’s a good idea to get to the hospital via his usual route a la rooftops even if he could figure out a way to manage it without dropping his passenger. Using one arm to keep the kid close and steady, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and dials the one person who’s both awake and discreet enough to come get him without possibly upsetting the kid further.
“Tsukauchi,” is the curt answer he gets when the phone stops ringing.
“It’s Eraserhead. I need a pick up.”
“How many? Wada and Fujimoto are on transport tonight.”
“It needs to be you, unmarked car. I need a ride to the hospital.”
“If you’re that injured - ”
“It’s a kid,” he interrupts.
A kid who is currently breathing very deeply and unevenly against his neck.
“I see. Where are you?”
“Hotaka Ward, 3rd Chome, streetlevel.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Are you safe?”
“As we can be,” Shota says, and ends the call.
He starts to slide his phone back into his pocket, but figures he’d better fire off a quick text first.
To: Hizashi
headed to hospital. not for me. home after.
Hizashi will have long been asleep by now, but will wake in the next few hours when Shota doesn’t wake him up coming home. After the third time he’d scared the blonde man shitless by not coming home in the first two weeks of living together, Shota had promised to text when his patrols ran long; it kept Hizashi from worrying too much - not that he would ever fully stop - and it reminded Shota that he had someone to go home to.
Depositing his phone, Shota returns his attention to the kid in his arms. The boy still has his hands clenched in his shirt, though one arm has snaked its way around the brunette’s neck. His breathing has calmed some, and the pro would think the kid was asleep if it weren’t for the occasional sniffle coming from just under his left ear.
A dark sedan turns the corner, and the only thing that keeps Shota from ducking into the mouth of the alley behind him is the recognition of the slightly dinged bumper, and a crack in the driver’s side headlight; Tsukauchi always fussed about both damages, but had yet to have the time or inclination to fix either.
The car slows to a stop beside him, and the cop leans over to open the door so Shota doesn’t have to struggle with both passenger and fine motor functions.
“Hey, kid, we’re gonna get in his car and my friend is going to take us to the hospital. That okay?”
For a moment, Shota thinks the kid is actually asleep, but then a short, soft nod brushes his mop of hair against his neck.
“Can I set you down? It’s okay to say no.”
The kid doesn’t nod this time, but he does curl himself further into Shota, so the man takes that as his answer.
Shota shuffles himself into the passenger seat of Tsukauchi’s car with a kid in his arms and a fucking muzzle in his hand.
“You seem to have had an interesting night,” the detective says dryly.
In response, Shota glares at the man and holds out the muzzle. Tsukauchi’s eyes go wide, then dark, an out-of-character scowl sullying his usual bland cop demeanor.
“I see,” he says.
Those are the last words spoken on the way to the hospital.