The Caretaker's Keeper

Caretaker's Keeper

Author's Note: I published this in two parts on AO3, but I'm going to post both parts together here. 

Based on a two-part prompt from SilveRanger's discord by GoofyBoss: (summarized version) where Midoriya Hisashi is a piece of trash and abandons his family, leaving them destitute. Somehow, Izuku comes into contact with AFO who hires him on as a caretaker for his little brother. Izuku-due to needing the money so he and his mom can one, buy food, and two, not be homeless-takes the job.

All credit for the prompt goes to GoofyBoss! I read it and immediately had to write about it!

(Trigger warnings: child abandonment, swearing, All for One being his usual creepy, possessive self, implied/referenced murder, and implied self-harm - nothing graphic but please don't risk your mental health to read this. I'm always more than happy to give people a TL;DR if they're curious and want to avoid triggering topics.)

(Trigger warnings for the Second-half: kidnapping, people in distress, All for One upping his creepiness meter, abandonment issues, implied/referenced child abandonment, and swearing.)

==

Izuku taps a pen to his bottom lip, thinking. Some would say looking through the newspaper for jobs was old fashioned, but usually the job offers put out into the paper didn't ask for much information on the person they're hiring.

The last job he got was as a delivery person, though he still doesn't know what he delivered from one side of the city to the other. And he doesn't want to know. His employer for that particular job kept to themselves and only spoke to Izuku long enough to, one, give vague threats to not tell anyone, and two, to give Izuku a wad of cash. Which helped pay for groceries for the upcoming week.

Ever since his deadbeat father left them, citing some excuse about "needing to find himself," because "Izuku is clearly not his," his poor mom has had to take on extra shifts at her job at the local hospital, as well as picking up a second job as a receptionist for a dental office.

It makes him unspeakably angry.

How was it fair that his father could continue his life, unbothered, when both his mom and Izuku were struggling to get by?

They downsized, moving from the apartment he knew all his life to a one bedroom apartment on the sketchier side of the city. His mom tried to give him the bedroom, but he couldn't bring himself to take his mom's last comfort away from her. She thought the same way, just in the opposite direction, so they compromised. On the days she had to work a double, Izuku could have the bed (at least on the doubles she worked overnight). And on the nights she was home, Izuku would refuse to step foot in the bedroom (lest his mom somehow convince him to take the bed, while she took the floor or couch). She needed rest, and Izuku would be damned if he didn't make sure she got it.

Even worse than being forced to relocate from his childhood home-and maybe this is childish of him-was him having to sell his merch collection. His mom didn't ask that of him, but at the time he hadn't been able to work (being only eleven).

He felt useless (just as Kacchan always said he was).

So, he decided to pawn anything of value.

He still attends Aldera, though now he has to get up even earlier and ride the city bus. The other kids make fun of him - thankfully (and he uses that word loosely) still only for his quirklessness. Either they have no idea he's been knocked down a class or two, or they don't care about that.

Kacchan, to his credit, has backed off (to some extent). But every so often he'll corner Izuku, and do his usual spiel on all the ways Izuku's useless, worthless, and can't possibly become a hero.